Randy White - Dead Silence

Hearing that confirmed something else Will had begun to suspect. Guttersen wasn’t as old as he looked. He was old but not old. Something had happened to the man that aged him.

“I saw some action around Kabul, slept in a tent and put on a couple of wrestling shows for the USO. Didn’t even mind the scorpions too much, but then the Hummer I was in hit an IED outside Mazar-Sharif and it all went to hell.”

Guttersen didn’t tell Will that until days later, the two of them staying up late one night watching The Angel and the Badman, sitting in La-Z-Boy recliners, the fancy ones with beer holders built right into the armrests.

Guttersen had offered the information in a mild, damn-near intelligent voice Will had never heard the man use before… and might never hear again.

“Don’t ask for details, Pony Boy,” Bull had said, ending the conversation. “If you bring it up, or tell a soul, I’ll say it never happened, because, once folks find out the truth, they never stop asking me about it- What was it like? Musta been hell -as if they knew something about hell. People don’t know jackshit about hell, not the Real McCoy hell. Trust me on that one.”

In the same mild voice, Bull had explained, “Even if I don’t answer their damn questions, I still end up thinking about the answers. And I don’t want to recall how truly shitty it was. Just don’t got the energy for that no more.” Bull had added, being very serious, “Pony, you’d have to be a POW yourself to understand.”

Buried alive, Will wondered now, his eyes open in darkness of his coffin. Does that count?

I gave up on asking Barbara for help. Made a phone call from the cab, got lucky and hitched a ride on an Army training flight to MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa. The plane was a C-130, similar to the aircraft that was being loaded with the Castro Files. No movie but a cargo hold the size of a gymnasium where I could stretch out and sleep.

“The military’s standards begin where your standards end,” I enjoyed telling Tomlinson over the phone, breaking the news that he would have to find his own way home.

By eight p.m. I was standing on the patio of Nelson Myles’s winter estate, near Venice Beach, watching the man through his kitchen window. He was pouring himself a scotch and soda, mostly scotch. The sober horseman was back in the saddle.

Good. He would be loose, possibly even talkative. What I had to decide was my approach. Knock on the door and introduce myself? Or lure the man outside, then drive him to a secluded spot?

If the police weren’t already looking for me, I might have played it straight. But their low-key inquiries were becoming more frequent, and they’d hinted about a subpoena. Mack, owner of Dinkin’s Bay Marina, had updated me on the phone, as I drove a rental car south on I-75, looking for an exit near the Sarasota County line and a development called Falcon Landing.

There are hundreds of gated communities in Florida and many hundreds more to come. Gate or no gate, few are communities. Developers bulldoze an oversized patch of scrub, truck in sod and palms to damper the stink of bruised earth, then mask their domino trap with a woodsy name-Cedar Lakes, Cypress Vista, Oak Hills-and presto!, instant habitat for people in search of instant lives.

Falcon Landing was different. It was a thousand-acre enclave, a private retreat isolated by fencing, security and almost two miles of bay frontage and beachfront. Prices started in the eight figures, execs who owned planes were the targeted demographic and there was a strict low-density covenant that catalyzed demand and guaranteed a waiting list of buyers. Even I had heard of some of the celebrities who owned homes at the place.

There were only two entrances to Falcon Landing. The southernmost was just north of Port Charlotte, the other near the pretty seaside town of Venice.

I approached from the north. The entrance was a limestone arch with a waterfall and a Learjet logo. At the guard station was a Wells Fargo security car and two uniformed men. The place took security more seriously than most, so I parked at public-beach access a half mile away. After changing into shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt, I belted a fanny pack around my waist and jogged back to the entrance. The guards replied to my wave with slow, uncertain salutes, but they didn’t stop me.

I can go without sleep for a couple of days, if I work out. But I hadn’t had time to do much of either in the last forty-eight hours. It felt good to be outside, alone and running in the Gulf-dense night. So good, I didn’t want to stop. Running is the best way I know to scope out an area. I picked up the pace-my way of making the run last-and mentally logged details that might be useful later.

Falcon Landing was a well-planned package: multimillion-dollar estates on ten-acre parcels, homes that looked as if they’d been layered from a tube of chocolate icing. There was a country club, clay courts, a banquet hall and restaurant that was open but not busy on this balmy, blustery January eve.

Every structure was efficiently screened by ficus or hibiscus hedges. Green zones were spacious, and there were trails and tree canopy enough to create the illusion of a Caribbean island retreat. The exception was the western edge of the property where more than a dozen small jets and prop planes were hangered on an FAA-licensed airstrip-seventy-two hundred feet long, according to signage. Members only, night traffic by appointment, corporate pilots must register with the attendant at Falcon Landing.

I wondered how tight airstrip security was.

The Myles estate was beachside, the house not visible from the road. It was shielded by islands of foliage: helicoids, birds of paradise, citrus and frangipani. There was a twelve-foot gate, wrought iron on electric tracks, with a horse-sculpture cap and a small brass plaque: SHELTER COTTAGE.

We’ll see…

I checked the street before ducking into the shadows where there was a chain-link fence. After dropping to the other side, I waited two minutes in case there was a perimeter alarm or a Doberman standing watch.

The house wasn’t a cottage, it was a massive three-story mansion with two-story wings at each end.

As I approached, I could hear the drumming of waves on the beach and the compressor kick of an air conditioner. Even on a flawless winter evening, the gated community types avoid contact with the reality of Florida… except for someone moving on the upper floor of the south wing.

I crouched and watched a woman step out onto a balcony. The moon was three days before full, not bright because of clouds but bright enough. Nelson’s wife? Yes. She was too full-bodied in her silken robe to be the daughter.

Connie Myles walked to the railing, listening to the thumping bass of New Age rock in the room behind her, then lit a cigarette. No… a joint. I had observed Tomlinson’s ceremonial machinations often enough to know. She inhaled several times, then pirouetted in a solitary dance, arms thrown wide, like Wendy in Peter Pan yearning to fly.

I remembered the photo I’d seen in Myles’s office of the wife who had appeared lost and haunted, shrinking ever smaller into the background of her family members’ lives. Perhaps I was mistaken. Perhaps the woman was simply stoned. For her sake, I hoped it was true.

When she finished smoking and had locked the French doors behind her, I worked my way past a tennis court and a small empty stable to the back lawn. The main house looked deserted, but there was activity in the north wing.

I crossed to the patio, where there was a pool house, a guest cottage and a landscaped deck with a tiki hut and lounge chairs. The pool was unlit, a graphite mirror beneath moon and stars. Lights were on in the kitchen… and Nelson appeared. I watched him open a fresh bottle of scotch and pour a drink.