Dead Silence Page 4

  “All that talking, the Venezuelan didn’t give you anything?”

  I said carefully, “If it was something your people could use, I’d tell you. Or the bureau.”

  “Then why such a rush? You keep looking at your watch. Couldn’t wait to get to a pay phone, even after I offered you my cell. I didn’t imagine it.”

  “I booked a morning flight to Florida, six forty-five, out of Newark. I wanted to get back tonight, but it’s too late.” True.

  When he said, “Okay, you got nothing that would interest us or the feds. But what about Interpol?” I answered, “Believe me, if I knew where the kid was you wouldn’t have to ask.”

  After several seconds, Esterline said, “That’s the way it’s gonna be, huh?”

  When he glanced at me, I was looking out the passenger window.

  “Then let’s leave it like this: If your memory improves, you call me. Not those assholes from the bureau. And not those brownnose detectives. Mostly, they’re a good bunch. But not those two. Okay?”

  I was watching storefronts blur past—delicatessens, clothing stores, the marquee of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel two blocks ahead—as I replied, “I owe you, Marv. I appreciate what you did for me tonight.”

  He laughed—a cynical, wise-guy laugh—done with it. “Okay, we’ll see. At least explain how you came up with the shirt gambit. Or are you gonna play dumb about that, too?”

  I said, “I wasn’t positive it would work.”

  “But it did work. How’d you think of it, that’s what I’m asking. You wrapped a shirt around each hand like a glove, then smacked both hands down hard on the ice. I saw you.”

  I said, “After clearing away the snow.”

  “Yeah, brushed it away and splashed some water. Only maybe that was accidental.”

  “It wasn’t,” I said.

  “Then smacked your hands down flat on the ice. After five, ten seconds, you hollered at the Latin guy, ‘Now!’ I heard that clear enough. He used your shoulder to boost himself up. You pulled yourself out, no problem. Then the two of you belly-crawled to shore.”

  “That was the scariest part,” I said, “those last few yards.”

  “So what was the deal, using the shirts? They gave you a better grip because your hands were warmer?”

  I said, “Just the opposite. The temperature’s in the twenties, our shirts were soaked. That’s what gave me the idea. When you were a kid, did you ever stick your tongue on a Popsicle?”

  Esterline said, “A couple times every winter, we get a call, some kid’s tongue is stuck to a pole or something.”

  “That’s the concept,” I said.

  After a few seconds, he smiled. “I’ll be goddamned. I get it. The shirts froze to the ice, huh? Your arms were like the two sticks.”

  “Sort of,” I told him.

  For the next block, I followed that tangent, explaining the tensile strength of water molecules as they bonded, crystallizing as ice. But what I was thinking about was the kid, in his rodeo clothes, and his smart-assed reply when I ordered him back into the limo.

  I wished him well, and hoped he really was as tough as he talked. Young William Chaser would have to be a survivor to endure the nightmare he was living—if he was still alive.

  4

  Curled in a dark space he knew was the trunk of a car, Will Chaser had vomited and nearly messed his jeans, he was so scared at first. Now, though, he was numb enough to do some thinking.

  Long as I live, I’ll never enter another essay contest, doesn’t matter the prize. I shoulda written the goddamn thing myself.

  Which he hadn’t. Not a word. Was amazed, in fact, the contest people never doubted.

  “We are pleased to recognize a young Indigenous American who comprehends the complexities of international relationships . . .”

  A line from the official letter of congratulations. Using “Indigenous” instead of “Native,” which was irritating, because Will had to go looking for a dictionary. Then using “comprehends,” like the judges were surprised to discover a Skin who wasn’t too damn stupid.

  “You don’t have to be a genius not to be stupid.” A line from his so-called foster granddad, Old Man Bull Guttersen.

  As a kid on the Rez, Will had done some dumb things. He’d been kicked out of three schools and arrested twice. Math was weak, his spelling worse. But he wasn’t stupid. Ever.

  Will was aware early on it would take a special effort for someone like him to win a statewide writing contest. Five pages, neatly typed? Margins just so, with a title page and numbers at the top? Not with so much competition in a state filled with brainy, corn-fed Minnesotans, half of them know-it-all Splittails with parents who acted like their crap didn’t stink. Faces might crack if they smiled and not because of the damn windchill factor—windchill being Minnesotans’ way of bragging about their shitty weather while sounding smart enough to move south if they wanted.

  Great Falls registered the lowest temperature in the nation this morning, 30° below, not counting windchill.

  They were proud of that?

  “Somewhere in Minnesota, there’s a freakin’ tombstone reads, ‘One below, not counting windchill,’ I shit thee not.” Bull Guttersen again.

  On the plus side there were blond girls who showed a warm interest in Will’s dark skin, his rodeo muscles and warrior hair, girls being what had gotten him into this mess to begin with. After the Rez in Seminole County, Oklahoma, blondes appealed to him because they were exotic.

  When Will showed Old Man Guttersen the contest booklet, Bull had read aloud, “Win five days in New York City . . . United Nations tour . . . Run for Secretary-General, International Youth Council . . . Teens from all over the world.”

  The old man had tossed the booklet on the table. “Left-wing candy-asses, that’s who’s behind this baloney. Never made a payroll in their lives. What hooked you is them pictures. Splittails from Sweden, Denmark, Berlin.”

  Which was true, of course. That was the good thing about the old man, Will didn’t have to lie.

  Bull, who was experienced at promotion, had done some thinking. “Know what? You being a half-breed minority Injun might just scratch their itch. A delinquent, too—that can’t hurt. But you ain’t suggesting you write this article yourself?”

  Will had replied, “What? You think I’m a dope? There’s a teacher at school who likes me: Mrs. Thinglestadt. I’ll get her to write it.”

  Which won the boy a nodding smile of approval from the old man. “Never thought I’d be saying this, considering you once offered to shoot me, but there are times I’d be proud to call you my son. I shit thee not, Pony Chaser.”

  Bull used thee and thou, having grown up Amish, driving a buggy and putting up hay, until he went into pro wrestling and became worldly. Pony was a name from a bit on Garage Logic, three hours of radio better than HBO. The old man was a reliable judge of entertainment after years in a wheelchair.

  Bull had a bias for TV westerns, which he admitted. Gunsmoke, Roy Rogers, anything John Wayne ever did. All related to his profession, six years wrestling as Outlaw Bull Gutter, four years as Sheriff Bull Gutter. Still had the cowboy hats, one black, one white.

  Pony Chaser, Bull told Will, was a decent ring name if Will ever showed an interest. Not as good as Bull Gutter or Crazy Horse Chaser, but better than Shadow Chaser, which sounded like a candy-ass name, or Whiskey Chaser, which risked having a negative influence on teenage boys who didn’t have the benefit of Will’s experience in life.

  “Get some size on you—earn it, so to speak—Crazy Horse might be the name that gets you into the World Wrestling Federation. I’ll let you know.”

  As the car hummed along, Will was surprised how strong the old man was in his mind. Sour old white guy—Caspers, they called white guys on the Rez, which had something to do with a cartoon ghost. But Guttersen still had backbone even though his spine had been broken doing a cage show in Muscatine.

  “Act fearless—the world’s full of cowards eager to be
lieve.” Otto Guttersen, the philosopher.

  “Life’s not like poker. Win or lose, attack, keep gambling, because once you cash those chips you’re screwed.” The man could go on for hours and often claimed the boys down at Berserker’s Grill said he should write a book.

  Attack. Exactly the way Will had decided to handle this situation.

  First thing he did was stop blaming himself. While it was true he’d cheated his way to New York, the moron really to blame was the big, goofy-looking guy wearing glasses.

  “Get back in the car!” the man had yelled, an order which Will had obeyed out of respect for being in such a big city. That’s who was to blame for getting him into this mess.

  If Will had kept going—helped the woman senator, as he intended—no telling how things might have worked out.

  The senator was rich—she had to be—and had a nice smile. She smelled good, too, with interesting curves for a woman so old, which she pretended to want to hide. But she didn’t—not really—wearing her jacket open to give Will a look at her blouse, the way buttons strained, then showing him a flash of black bra as if it were accidental.

  It wasn’t accidental, as his English teacher, Mrs. Thinglestadt, had proven to him back in Minnesota.

  Pretty girls: something else that had gotten him into this fix. Well . . . a pretty woman, because Will couldn’t justly think of a teacher as a girl. Not after charming Mrs. Thinglestadt for three careful months and finally getting her to invite him home to seduce him.

  Bull had agreed it was smart, the way Will had made her beholden by proving his trust. Meeting the woman late in the park off Minnehaha and 46th, no one around but a few drunken Skins. Handing her the baggie of weed, then pocketing her money, before telling her how heavy it made his heart seeing his ancestors living like shit-faced bums.

  Will had almost used the word firewater but decided no, not everybody watched westerns.

  Mrs. Thinglestadt was a type. A milky-skinned female eager to prove she was open indeed by helping her inferiors one at a time. But smart in her way, obviously smart enough to write a prizewinning essay.

  So he couldn’t rightly blame her . . . unlike the jerk who’d ordered him back in the limo.

  Big, goofy-looking dork. If I ever lay eyes on him again, just wait!

  For now, though, Will was focusing on attacking the problem at hand. He’d been awake for more than an hour and was working in spurts to free himself even though his stomach was queasy from the ether.

  He knew he was in a rental car—the assholes driving didn’t realize he understood Tex-Mex Spanish. And because of the steady speed, he also knew they were on a highway and he’d be safe until the car began to slow.

  The men had duct-taped his hands behind his back. It wasn’t hard to wiggle his knees to his chest, then thread his feet through. Will had used his fingers to peel the tape from his mouth, then chewed his hands free. Next, his ankles, before tearing through the garbage bag they’d stuffed him into, not caring if he suffocated. He almost had suffocated when he vomited, the burn of upchuck being what saved him.

  A garbage bag, like he was damn garbage or trash or an oil-patch ’groid. How many times had he been called names like that on the Rez or by drunk foster parents who hated kids but needed that good money the government paid?

  Candy-asses.

  First thing he did after peeling away that plastic bag was use the trunk liner to wipe has hands and face clean as he spit, spit, spit, trying to get the sick ether taste out of his mouth. No water. Nothing to piss in either. His new beaver cowboy hat was gone, too—the sonuvabitches wouldn’t say where, they had no appreciation for fine western headgear. They’d also taken his wallet, which had almost two hundred dollars in it, plus a debit card good for seven hundred and forty dollars more, which Will had earned himself, saving for something special he’d wanted to buy . . . if he ever got the chance. Which he probably wouldn’t, not after this.

  They’re gonna kill me, didn’t even give me a can to piss in. Shows how much they don’t care.

  Will came close to retching again, thinking about dying, because he knew it was true.

  Now he was at the rear of the trunk, his nose burrowed close to the taillight, where air filtered free of exhaust, cold off the highway. It was eerie red inside the trunk because of the taillights, the carpet hotter over the wheel wells.

  Beside him was a tire jack, a lug wrench and a screwdriver that he’d found under the floorboard. Still working in spurts, Will squared the jack on the frame and ratcheted the jack until it was wedged tight against the trunk lid. He continued ratcheting, hearing metal creak as if the lid was about to burst open. It didn’t.

  Just wait ’til you open this sonuvabitch, you morons!

  Will left the jack and rested for a few minutes before prying open the backside of a taillight. Every Skin on the Rez was a shade-tree mechanic. What he wanted was to short out the electrical system, but the damn fuses would blow first. Also, he didn’t have a stripper or side cuts.

  Instead, Will grounded a secondary wire just to see what would happen. The brake light began blinking. On the other side of the car, he yanked the ground wire free. The light went out.

  Good. Give the cops a reason to stop us.

  It was peculiar, lying there in the car’s trunk, as the red taillight flashed. Piercing red, even with his eyes closed, while thinking about what they’d done to him.

  Garbage . . . trash . . . oil-patch bucks. No water, his wallet stolen, no ID.

  Yep, they were gonna murder him.

  After several minutes of fuming about his situation, being killed by two spic-speaking strangers, Will felt a chemical sensation bloom in the back of his brain that caused his heart to pound. He sat up as the sensation radiated. He felt fear, then a suffocating panic.

  “Stop! Stop this goddamn car!”

  Will began kicking the floor, hammering at the trunk, wanting the assholes up front to hear. Kept yelling when the car veered right and began to slow. He didn’t care about signaling the cops now. The panic was fading, yet the chemical burn remained. The pulsing red light remained, too—even as he got on his knees and ripped both taillights from their harnesses.

  The red light he saw was behind his eyes, Will realized. Red, a color so bright he could smell it. He opened his eyes, then closed them. Red—still there, now strong enough to muffle his hearing.

  “A grand mal seizure or anger-management problems,” a government shrink had told Will’s parole officer the first time Will had screwed up and actually told the shrink how it sometimes felt when he got mad.

  What he didn’t tell the shrink was that it had happened before. Happened again tonight, in fact, when the big Cuban-speaking asshole grabbed him by the back of the neck and shook him as if Will was a rag, no more valuable than a dog’s toy.

  Flash.

  The man had snapped a photograph, causing more searing red dots to bloom.

  Whenever the fear inside Will changed to rage, he saw that pungent color. His vision sharpened, the world quieted. Will saw only his adversary, alone in a tunnel of red, red silence.

  The darkness of the trunk was red-hued now, as the vehicle bounced off the road and braked to a stop. Will checked the jack and cranked it one more notch, putting so much pressure on the lid that the trunk’s hinges creaked like springs on a steel trap.

  Will heard the car’s front door open, passenger side, a voice saying, in Spanish, “Hurry, check on the brat—it’s nine-thirty already!”

  Door closed . . . Then Will listened to the heavy steps of a man walking on gravel, coming toward the back of the car to check the noise Will’d been making in the trunk.

  Come on, you bastard, open it . . . Open it! Just you wait!

  Will felt his brain burning, the anger was so strong. In his right hand, he gripped the lug wrench, while air molecules circulated around the trunk space in darkness, tracing pale gray contrails when the boy’s eyes were closed . . . but sparking silver-red when they collided wi
th Will’s hard, dark eyes.

  5

  At 9:30 p.m., a security guard signed me into Barbara Hayes-Sorrento’s suite, which was actually two suites, courtesy of hotel management. They’d donated the adjoining rooms because there were almost as many staffers inside working for the senator as there were reporters outside waiting for a statement.

  Hooker was expecting me because the front desk had called. He wore a corduroy shooting jacket with patches at the elbows, a blue cravat tucked into his shirt. Same clothes he’d worn when he’d excused himself to freshen his whiskey four hours earlier at the Explorers Club. Not a stain or a scratch on him.

  “Any word from the kidnappers?” I asked, taking off gloves that Esterline had loaned me. From the next room, I could hear one-sided phone conversations, the voices of men and women blending with the clatter of a printer.

  “No news, I’m afraid. We’ve put a few pieces of the puzzle together, but nothing at all on the boy. The senator’s been trying to contact his parents. Apparently, the father abandoned the family long ago. And staff can’t seem to locate the mother.”

  Because the Brit read my expression correctly, he added, “It wasn’t his parents. The boy lives with a foster family in Minneapolis. The men were after Barbara, no one doubts that. Thanks to you, I was able to steer her out of harm’s way. Taking the child wasn’t planned. It may be true of the limo driver as well, but that’s not been confirmed.”

  I said, “William Chaser, a teenager from Minnesota. The police kept me updated.”

  “Yes—Will I think he’s called. Good organization, the NYPD. They’ve assigned liaison officers to keep the senator informed. She’s very pleased you got one of the kidnappers but worried about you catching pneumonia.”

  I was picturing the kid in his cowboy hat and boots, seeing his tough-guy expression when I ordered him back in the limo. By now, he had probably bawled himself dry, too scared to risk his cowboy act.

  I said, “No father, living with a foster family? Jesus, a high school freshman. That makes him about thirteen years old.”