Randy White - Dead Silence

Which was partly a lie. Will had only heard rumors about his father being Seminole. Before his mother had died, she’d told the boy that his daddy might have been a no-good, drunken drug addict, but on her side of the family things were different. Her father had run a successful airboat business in the Everglades. His grandfather had been famous-in that part of the world at least.

The way his mother had talked, Will’s grandfather had been seven feet tall and so damn handsome every woman in the country, white, black or Seminole, was crazy about the man, his mother included.

But screw it, Will wasn’t going to waste effort convincing some old racist Casper who was on the verge of suicide anyway.

Walking toward the old man, slouched in his wheelchair, Will had yelled, “Pull the goddamn trigger or I’ll show you how it’s done!”

Threatening to shoot the man. Just like that.

Off to a bad start with Otto Guttersen, no question. But it had balanced out because interrupting Bull in the act of killing himself gave Will leverage. Stealing meant jail, but attempting suicide meant the loony farm.

As to shooting a foster grandchild, Lutheran Social Services was strict. Mrs. Guttersen would have been banned from the program and forced to spend her days home alone, not volunteering.

“She would’ve talked me to death, I shit thee not,” Guttersen had said later, thanking Will. “That’s a thousand times worse than a bullet.”

The relationship between robber and witness had improved over the last eighteen months.

Weird, how much I think about that old bastard. Same as when I was locked in the car trunk, taped tight and scared. Like he was there with me.

To which Old Man Guttersen would have said, “You’re surprised? Any situation that requires a cool head, I’m your go-to guy.”

Well… sometimes, maybe. Guttersen was right a lot of the time, but was also dead wrong upon occasion. What he’d said about stupid threats- Never make a threat that’ll get your ass kicked or prove you’re a pussy- wasn’t actually the first time he had given Will misinformation. More like the fiftieth or sixtieth.

Wish Guttersen was here right now. He’d go apeshit, stuck in a box. Back in the barn, that’s where I could’a used Bull. Stalls all dark-perfect for an ambush. If the Cubans came through that door, old Bull would have…

The old man would have done what? Wasn’t much he could do, being a cripple, except wait for events to happen.

Possibly so, yet Will would’ve still felt a lot better if Bull was with him. Safer, although safer wasn’t the right word because Bull was in a wheelchair. He couldn’t stick his big Norwegian finger in Metal-eyes’s face, then pull his cheap pearl-handled revolver. And he couldn’t beat the shit out of Buffalo-head like he would’ve done in the old days as Sheriff Bull Gutter.

A guy takes a swing, my best move is a quick duck-under to a fireman’s carry. Then helicopter-spin him a few times-in a bar fight or a professional show, either way. Next, a body slam, followed by a knee-drop to the neck. As a professional, I’ve got to moderate the knee-drop or I kill the bastard. Same if it’s a bar fight, although I have given more than one private citizen a little “sweet taste,” we called it. Something to remember me by.

Bull Guttersen’s commentary the night they’d watched John Wayne in The Quiet Man, a movie in which a big Irish actor knocks the Duke on his ass, the Duke having been a nice guy once too often.

No chance of me being too nice, not if I ever get my hands on Metal-eyes.

Will hated the man, and it caused his brain to return to the present. Thinking about what Metal-eyes had done to Cazzio, and now what the Cubans were doing to him, the boy felt the first cellular prickle of heat on the back of his neck.

Don’t get mad. Don’t.

It scared Will, the thought of what he might do if he lost control now.

After Metal-eyes had shot him full of horse tranquilizer, the Cubans had discovered that Will had been chewing at the tape on his hands. So they had wrapped him with new tape and moved him to a different place, keeping him blindfolded the entire time. Next, they shoved him into what turned out to be the box the American had mentioned.

The sound the hammer had made as Buffalo-head nailed the lid closed was the most sickening sound Will had experienced. Worse even than Cazzio’s last frightened whinny.

The box was too small for the boy to move in, the lid only inches from his nose. It was like a coffin, with a padded floor and some unseen vent that let in air. Not much. Right now, though, that trickle of air was the boy’s only connection to life as he’d known it.

Telling himself to breathe, to concentrate on more pleasant things, Will tried to calm down, reminding himself, If I lose my temper in here, I could snap my own arm bones fighting against this damn tape. Animals do it all the time when they’re caught in a trap.

What would happen next, Will didn’t want to explore, although he knew what would happen because a small, wise place in the boy’s brain whispered the truth to him: You can’t endure much more.

If he lost control, really lost it, Will knew what would happen and that terrified him. Insane. He would go so wild insane, so crazy insane that his brain would never come back to him.

Will took another breath through his nose, released it slowly and began once again to repeat, Minnesota… Minnesota… Minnesota

…

I told Tomlinson it was too windy and cold and I was too damn tired to put up with his aimless sawing on a childhood harmonica, it was almost midnight.

“You’re irritating the hell out of me. Aren’t you usually passed out drunk by now?”

“I’ve convinced my liver that daylight saving’s has been outlawed. It’s celebrating. Don’t rock the boat.” He did a quick scale, then slapped the instrument on his palm. “The suit’s the guy I want to irritate. Maybe he’ll freak out and leave us alone.”

The suit wasn’t wearing a suit. He was a man bundled in a hooded ski jacket, waving his arms as he approached, calling, “Hold it right there, please,” as I opened the gate to Shelter Point Stables.

In a distant pasture, I could see an industrial glare of lights and heard the diesel surging of a backhoe. When the man was close enough, I identified myself, then asked, “You’re digging the horse’s grave already?,” letting him know I was in a hurry and had a reason to ask.

I watched the man fix a cordial expression on his face, squinting into headlights because the rental was still running, both doors open. “Who did you say you are again?”

I repeated everything, question included, as I stepped through the gate.

“Alacazam has been buried, that’s right. Probably just finishing up now,” the man said, handing me a card. “It’s been a tough day for all of us. I’m sure you understand.”

I said, “I understand. But I want to have a look at the grave.” I turned toward the car for light. ARCHIBALD HEFFNER MANAGER/GENERAL ATTORNEY EQUINE ACQUISITION amp; SALES N.A. MYLES, INC.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

I shook my head. “It won’t take long.”

“Not tonight, gentlemen. Impossible.”

Tomlinson gave it a try. “We met the trainer earlier, Gardiner-Fred Gardiner. I got the impression he runs the place. Tell him Tom’s here. We’re like friends, sort of. I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

I wasn’t convinced, nor was the attorney.

“One of the finest trainers on the South Fork,” Heffner said. “But Fred doesn’t have”-he paused as a helicopter roared overhead, watched until the chopper’s strobe was a quiet blip-“Fred handles the day-to-day operations. But Mr. Myles instructed me to oversee the ranch until things settle down. We have many millions of dollars invested in our livestock”-he was looking at Tomlinson, interpreting the ponytail, the four-day beard, the pirate earring-“animals have rights, too, you know. A lot of people don’t understand that-”