Dead Silence (5 page)

“It was our only chance.”

“You had that asshole by the short hairs. You’d just watched him rough up the senator. She was your date for the evening and the bastard tried to kidnap her. You could’ve made that guy tell you anything you wanted to know. Or just left the asshole out there.”

I stared out the window, waiting for him to ask a key question the detectives had not asked.

Instead, Esterline said, “Almost thirty years, I’ve done this job. Ford, I’m not stupid, but tonight you made me feel stupid. When I popped you with the flashlight, I would’ve bet you were some nerd math teacher, in town for a convention but ended up at too many strip bars.”

“Thanks,” I said, smiling.

“Then you pitch yourself as a biologist on vacation. Just doing your civic duty. Bullshit. I saw how you handled yourself in the park. I watched how you handled those FBI preppies.”

I said nothing.

“When you were in the water, the Venezuelan told you something. I couldn’t hear. But I saw how you reacted. Every word, you filed away. See why I’m interested?” He took his eyes off traffic long enough to see me nod.

“If I thought it’d help that boy, I’d have a couple cops waiting for us at a quiet place. Old-school types. You’d get real talkative real quick.
Kapeesh?
”

He looked again. I didn’t nod.

“What’d you tell the big shots when they asked about you and the greaser, all alone in the water with time to talk?”

“They didn’t ask.”

“You’re kidding. I asked you twice before we got to the station. But you went off on some tangent.”

I said it again. “They never asked.”

“Figures. The whole damn world is gone to shit.”

Looking at him, I said, “Marv, if I knew where the boy was, I would have volunteered it.”

It was true. In the water, Choirboy had answered three questions in exchange for my help. My first question was:
Where are they taking the senator?

Because he said he didn’t know, I let him live. If he was lying, I wanted the feds to have a chance to pry it out of him.

“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.

C
urled 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.

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

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.

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 believe.” 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.

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?

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.