Randy White: Dead Silence

The cop and the civilians stared at me, seeing torn pants and my short-sleeved polo, as the horse snorted frosted plumes, saddle creaking in the cold.

When I started to explain, the cop told me, “On your knees. Now,” not raising his voice much. He holstered his weapon temporarily to dismount the horse.

The Venezuelan lowered his hands, a hint of a smile for me-just me-as he said, “I must go meet American friends because I am late. Thank you for arresting this dangerous man.” He was looking at the cop who had both feet on the ground now, gun still holstered, as he keyed a radio to call for backup.

When the cop told him, “Sorry, sir. Not until I see some identification,” the Venezuelan’s expression read I don’t understand. He turned and began walking.

“I’m talking to you, sir. Do you hear me?”

The Venezuelan smiled and gave a friendly wave, still walking. Then walked faster as the cop drew his weapon, telling him, “Stop now! I’m not going to tell you again.”

Because I saw it coming, I was already moving when the Venezuelan ran. Got a good jump as, behind me, the cop shouted, “Freeze! I’ll blow your fucking heads off!,” not sounding like an actor.

He yelled something else as I closed in on the Venezuelan, already at full speed because I was running downhill. Legs driving, head up as I lowered my shoulder, I hit the man so hard I heard the cartilage pop of his ribs as we went spinning out across the frozen pond.

On the ice, sliding, there was the illusion that we gained speed, and I could hear the honk of surprised waterfowl as they scattered. I wrestled my way atop the Venezuelan as we stopped and had my fist hammered back in case he tried to run again.

The man wasn’t going anywhere. He was bug-eyed, fighting to breathe with his broken ribs.

I got to my feet, shielding my face from the spotlight. When I took a step, my feet skated out from under me and I almost fell.

I hollered, “Get that damn light out of my eyes! I didn’t run. He did.”

The cop thought about it a beat before telling me, “I’ve got people on the way. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

I wasn’t in the mood. “Deal with it. You try walking on this shit with your hands up.”

The cop raised his voice to insist but stopped talking when I stopped-froze, more accurately-both of us listening to a cracking sound. The noise spiderwebbed across the pond.

I looked at my feet, then into the spotlight. I was asking the cop, “Do you have a rope?,” as I went through the ice.

The Venezuelan dropped next.

The kidnappers didn’t get the senator. They grabbed the teenager instead. Will Chaser, a high school freshman from Minneapolis.

Apparently, Minnesota had cowboys.

The mounted cop, Marvin Esterline, gave me the news. Fitting. The man had twenty-seven years with NYPD, the last eight as a member of the elite mounted division. He stuck around after they’d driven us from the pond, then moved me from the Central Park office to the 19th Precinct, a five-story building on East 67th, red brick with blue trim.

For two hours, I answered questions. Every time I took a break, Esterline was in the lounge waiting. “Unlike a certain South American perp,” he explained, “you didn’t demand an attorney.”

“You can’t question him until a lawyer shows up?” I asked.

“No, Einstein,” the cop replied. “No questions because his attorney did show up. It burns my ass how tight the regs are now.”

The perp was Louis Duarte, a twenty-three-year-old university student from Caracas who had a couple of minor dings on his record, both associated with protest rallies, one in Rome. Interesting.

“A political activist,” the cop told me, showing his own politics the way he said it. Maybe because of his contempt, Esterline continued to refer to Duarte as the perp or the Venezuelan. And once or twice, as the greaser, even though Esterline looked Italian, the mother’s side probably.

Esterline was a veteran who wasn’t afraid to bend the rules. He made sure I got a shower in the precinct locker room, telling the duty officer, “There’s so much duck shit in that pond, this guy will be quacking. How you gonna question a man who quacks?”

He had a couple of uniforms talk their way into my hotel and bring me dry clothes. He also delivered a thermos of coffee spiked with whiskey.

“You still cold?” Esterline kept asking.

Yes, I was still cold. I was also in a hurry-in a hurry because of something Choirboy had said while we were struggling to pull ourselves out of the water. But there was no way to speed up the questioning without inviting suspicion. Esterline had good instincts. I got the impression he’d guessed why I was in a hurry because he kept bringing the subject back to Choirboy, the two of us alone out there in water.

More than once, he said, “That Venezuelan owes you his life.”

It was true.

Maybe Esterline felt like he owed me, too. Two corpses would have cost him a lot of paperwork. Instead, I had handed him Choirboy alive, a big-time collar that might help his career.

Esterline wasn’t doing the questioning. In charge were detectives from NYPD’s Major Crimes Unit and agents from the FBI. A couple of other men entered the room and left without a word. Maybe cops, or maybe reps from one of the U.S. intelligence agencies-my old boss keeping an eye on me? No way to know.

I cooperated, but in the careful way men in my profession have been trained to cooperate. I went off on tangents. I misunderstood questions. Esterline’s comment about my “clean report” was a reminder that civilians behave like civilians.

Presumably, Choirboy would soon be questioned, but in a more secure setting. I wondered if he would tell his interrogators what he had already confessed to me. I had given Louis Duarte a choice when the two of us were in the water, trying to pull ourselves from the ice: Tell me the truth or I’ll leave you to die. So he had told me the truth. Maybe.

It was another reminder: Civilians give information. Professionals barter it. Choirboy had placed a major chip on my side of the table.

I didn’t waste that chip on the detectives. Our sessions weren’t contentious. They could confirm most of my story. I had hand-delivered one of the kidnappers, so they rewarded me with bits of information in trade. But it was Esterline who provided details as reports came in.

Sir James Montbard had rescued Barbara while I was being dragged down the street, he told me. The Brit had led her through some secret entrance into the Explorers Club basement.

I smiled, picturing it. The Brit had a debonair ease that made everything he did seem effortless. The fact that he was seventy years old mitigated my envy, but only a little.

Because of Hooker, the kidnappers had to settle for the teenager. Apparently, the kid had taken my bad advice and stayed in the limo. Esterline didn’t know if the driver was one of the bad guys or another victim because it was a limo service, not the senator’s personal car. They were still searching for the vehicle.

Barbara had been assigned a security team, then driven to her suite at the Waldorf. Esterline told me she had requested that one of my friends keep her company until her staff arrived.

“The report says either the British guy or someone referred to as ‘the Buddhist psychic’-whatever that means.”

My neighbor, Tomlinson, is what it meant.

When Esterline became diplomatic, adding, “Either guy, I’m sure she’s in good hands,” I didn’t tell him that Tomlinson’s hands were far less trustworthy when a woman was involved. Nor did I inform him that the Buddhist psychic had already returned to Florida and was probably aboard his sailboat smoking something harvested personally.