Randy White - Dead Silence

No. The voices weren’t real. More hallucinations. Same with the harmonica, although it wasn’t easy to be sure, not since he’d awakened after being injected with a dose of Ketamine, the same horse tranquilizer he’d used on Buffalo-head.

The boy tried to relax. He summoned a pattern of thought that might be comforting. Into his brain floated the image of Old Man Guttersen.

Will held tight to the image as he opened his eyes. He was testing his own sanity, wondering if a mental picture would remain as lucid with his eyes open as it was when his eyes were closed.

It should have made no difference, considering what the Cubans had done to him now. One darkness was no blacker than the other.

But it did make a difference.

Will realized images in his brain were sharper with eyes closed, possibly because that’s what his brain was used to: dreams and certain daylight fantasies.

So that’s what Will did now, closed his eyes, breathing softly through his nose, and returned to the image of Bull Guttersen, which was more tolerable than the image Will wanted to get rid of: the old Cuban, with his dead, clinical eyes, holding a revolver, then pulling the hammer back.

Metal-eyes had blinked when his revolver jolted, the weapon making an unreal explosion as guns did in real life. But the hole the bullet had tunneled through Cazzio’s head was as real as anything Will had ever seen.

Too real for Will to think about, so he levered his thoughts back to Minnesota, the way it was living there before he had boarded that damn plane and before the big nerd with glasses had ordered, “Get your ass back in the limo!,” or something similar, which had contributed as much as anything else to his shitty situation.

Will took a deep breath through his nose, and let his mind settle, repeating Minnesota… Minnesota over and over in his brain, but then had to interrupt himself with an honest aside, thinking, Never thought I’d see the day I’d dream of going back to that ass-freezing land of too many lakes and not enough ranches.

True enough. But right now, he would have traded the box the Cubans had stuck him in for the worst hellhole foster home in Minneapolis.

“Specially constructed,” the scary American with the stringy hair had described the box.

Not that Ruth Guttersen’s place was a crummy box or hellhole. It was neither. Mrs. Guttersen kept her two-story house, with its white siding, with its flowers and a flag out front, as tidy as a church. Which would have been tough for Will to have endured had the old man not kept things interesting.

Bull had a knack for that, which he had proven on day one.

The first time Will met Otto Guttersen, the old man was holding a Colt. 38 to his own head, only seconds from committing suicide-the suicide part, though, Bull hadn’t admitted to Will until later.

Okay, so I lied. Russian roulette ain’t something I normally do when bored-not with more than one round in the chamber anyway.

The gun, though, the man couldn’t deny. It was a knockoff Colt, with a plastic-ivory handle but loaded with real bullets.

This was two years ago, Minneapolis. Because that first meeting had turned out okay-it had turned out good, in fact-the boy didn’t mind remembering it, so he let his brain follow the thread.

Will had climbed through the kitchen widow because no one answered the door at his new foster home, then hurried downstairs carrying a garbage bag. He had enough experience with the Lutheran Foster Grandparents Program to know Minnesotans kept many of their valuables in the basement, which they called recreation rooms after fixing them up nice with carpet and neon beer signs, a pool table or foosball and sometimes a flat-screen TV.

There sat the old man, a gun to his head, even though what Will would learn was his favorite radio program was on, Garage Logic. The fact it was a commercial break may have had something to do with the timing, but it didn’t explain why the old man was holding a gun to his head and crying. Eyes swollen red, cheeks wet.

It was new to Will, the helpless, sad blubbering of a grown man. Stood there almost a minute before Guttersen noticed, then he watched the man slowly, slowly take the gun from his temple and point it at Will. Embarrassed, no doubt, but not too damn old to pull the trigger. No doubt about that, either, when Will saw a spark brighten the man’s eyes.

“It’s good you brought that garbage bag. Less mess when I blow your head off.”

Will had said, “You talking to me or your hostage?,” never so scared in his life but trying to keep it light, as if the situation wasn’t serious, while not sounding like a smart-ass.

“I suppose you plan on robbing the place, then murdering the witnesses,” Guttersen had said, his tone mean-mad but also hopeful in a spooky way. Maybe planning something in his head, a way to kill two birds with one stone. Shoot the robber, then shoot the witness. A perfect crime.

Will decided the smart thing to do was explain. “There’s a pawnshop, they pay thirty cents on the dollar for old coins and gold and souvenirs from the war.” Something about the old man indicated Lie to me or try bullshitting, bang! so Will added, “I saw the flag outside. Houses with flags, the people usually collect all three.”

Click: The gun’s cylinder rotated as the hammer locked back. “Stealing from American patriots makes me less inclined to offer you a beer while we’re waiting for the ambulance.”

Will didn’t respond, didn’t even put up his hands.

“Are you deaf or just slow?”

The man was motioning with the gun, so Will raised his hands, saying, “I’m scared shitless, what do you think?”

“You can hear.”

“Yeah! I can see, too.” Will nodded toward the sign over the bar: FREE BEER TOMORROW. “It’s no surprise that I’m gonna go thirsty.” He forced a smile.

Guttersen didn’t soften. “A damn kid who’s got no respect for the American flag shouldn’t be robbing houses owned by patriots with guns who know their rights.” He studied him for a moment. “What are you, Puerto Rican? Mexican?”

The old man was trying to fire up the situation. That’s what was happening. He had a plan and didn’t want to lose his momentum.

“No need to call names,” Will said. “Why don’t you go back to doing what you were doing? I’ll promise to never steal from a house that flies the flag again. How’s that sound?”

The old man was still looking at Will’s face, seeing the black eyes and the shoulder-length crow hair, trying to figure it out. “Maybe Mexican mixed with something else. Ethiopian is a possibility. They’ve ’bout taken over the Twin Cities. Could be your daddy raped one of our local Latin girls.”

Will said, “Don’t say that,” and lowered his hands.

“You got something against Ethiopians? Nothing to be ashamed of.”

A burning sensation in his ears, Will could feel it blooming. “I ain’t no damn Ethiopian, mister. Knock it off.”

“You break into my house to rob me and kill witnesses. Now you’re giving me orders?”

“What right you got saying my dad’s Ethiopian? I’m a Native American, not some damn foreigner who wears robes and pisses in the park.”

Guttersen liked that, although Will didn’t see it and only got madder when the old man replied, “Don’t blame me for sizing you as a welfare mutt. Hell, half the people claiming to be Indian in Minnesota, you couldn’t get a bullet through their heads with a. 357. It’s ’cause of the gambling money.”

That did it. Will felt the craziness take control-an ammonia smell mixed with sulfur-and he started yelling, “I wouldn’t live in this shithole state if you gave me the keys! Wear robes just to get a welfare check? Humping Mary Tyler Moore’s statue just ’cause she’s white? My dad was pure-blooded Seminole from Oklahoma. And my ma was Apache!”