Randy White - Dead Silence

The man was wearing a dress shirt that would fit if he gained fifteen pounds, suggesting recent weight loss. That, coupled with the scotch, meshed with what Roxanne had told me.

“Two weeks ago,” she’d said, “Nels went off the deep end. It started with a phone call-that much I know for sure. But he wouldn’t tell me what it was about.”

Nelson was going to tell me.

At the edge of the patio was a metal trash can. I imagined the gonging sound the lid would make if raccoons dumped the thing. It was a fail-safe call to duty for a man enjoying a whiskey glow. But the wife worried me, even though she was stoned and insulated by ten thousand square feet of stucco and furniture.

Instead, I scouted the side of the house, where I found a Range Rover parked outside the five-car garage. When I saw the New York plates and a trailer hitch, I felt a hunter’s rush… until I did the math. Even nonstop, the drive from the Hamptons would’ve taken more than twenty hours. It was a different Range Rover.

Will Chaser wasn’t here, unless they’d boxed him into one of those private jets-it was possible.

I wanted to discuss that with Myles, too.

Using my ASP Triad light, I settled on a place to hide, then checked the interior of the vehicle. It was the big luxury Rover, with navigation, and a security system that was sufficiently sensitive. Headlights and horn blared an alert when I forced a burglar’s shim through the door seal.

When Nelson came hurrying out, drink in hand, I waited until he was returning to the house before I surprised him.

I used duct tape, mouth and hands. Appropriate, I hoped. I got a good look at the Skull and Bones ring Myles wore, as I took care to do a professional job with the tape, thumbs out, fingers not locked.

The ring was similar to others I had seen.

Nelson Myles didn’t double the family fortune or run a successful stable or get his jet rating by being easily bullied, so I didn’t expect him to go all weepy once he recovered from the shock of being hijacked in his own vehicle. But I also didn’t anticipate his detached reaction after I’d parked, headlights off, parking lights on, and torn the tape from his mouth.

He said, “Let’s cut to the chase and save us both some time. How much do you want?”

Extortion, the first thing to come to his mind. He was drunk, I realized, in the first articulate stages of a scotch bender. I didn’t reply.

After a moment, he said, “Talk to me. I have more money than patience. Come up with a figure. If it’s reasonable, I won’t get the police involved. It has nothing to do with keeping my word, or any of that noble bullshit. I have too much on my plate right now to deal with police. So your timing couldn’t be better.” He paused, suspicious. “Or maybe someone tipped you off. Was it a woman?”

That was unexpected. He was thinking of Roxanne-also a surprise. Well… he knew her better than I did.

I sat looking at him, letting my eyes adjust to the dash lights, hearing the vehicle’s cooling engine and the wind in melaleuca trees outside my open window. The man was working his lips, trying to get rid of tape residue, but didn’t offer eye contact. I was a hired hand, beneath his station-my impression.

He said, “With a phone call, I can have forty thousand cash within half an hour, anyplace you say. If you want more, we’ll have to wait until the banks open. That’s risky, in my opinion. More chance of something going wrong. But it’s your decision.”

After two minutes of silence, he added, “Personally, I’d take the cash.”

After another minute, he said, “Think it over.”

After another thirty seconds, he said, “While I’m waiting, open the door, I have to pee.”

I was going through the fanny pack, letting him watch from the corner of his eye as I removed a lab towel, the ASP light, then surgical gloves, finally a pistol.

The pistol was a recent acquisition. It was a. 32 caliber Seecamp, a precision-made firearm not much larger than a candy bar. I’m not a gun aficionado, so I had done a month of research and fired a lot of weapons before deciding that the Seecamp was the finest phantom pistol on the tactical market.

Close my fingers around the little gun, it disappeared in my hand

… phantomlike.

I did that now, closing my hand, then opening it, letting Myles fixate on the gun. He was a shrewd guy. The workmanship, the articulate density of stainless steel, were more persuasive than any threat I could make. A weekend thug or a drug hustler would flash a big, showy knife, not a scalpel. Nelson Myles was looking at a scalpel.

“If you think you’re going to intimidate me with that, you’re mistaken,” he said, sounding nervous for the first time.

I popped the magazine and thumbed out six high-impact rounds before replying, “Why would I care? It all pays the same.”

I let him watch me snap on the surgical gloves before toweling the steering wheel, then each bullet, clean. I reloaded two rounds into the magazine and killed the dome light. When I opened the door, he made a reflexive, mewing sound as he inhaled, then recovered by clearing his throat.

Now the man was looking at me. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing? You get some kind of power rush playing the hard-ass? If you want to negotiate, let’s negotiate. We can come to an agreement. There’s another friend I can call. I can guarantee you sixty thousand-no, seventy thousand-cash. No questions, no risk. I’ve got my cell on me. Cut my hands loose and I’ll have the money waiting.”

I replied, “I’ve already been paid,” then pushed the door closed. I walked to the passenger side, hoping to hell police didn’t choose now to cruise this dirt utility road, with its detritus of garbage and beer cans, close enough to Interstate 75 to hear the wake of traffic. No combination of lies could explain kidnapping a Who’s Who millionaire. My own distaste for what I was doing would probably have given me away before I tried. In psychological warfare, tactical cruelty is just another arrow in the quiver.

I told myself that if I was right, what I was doing might save the boy. If wrong, Myles was tough enough to recover, then deal with it along with his long list of other personal problems.

I opened the door, grabbed the man behind the neck and tumbled him onto the ground, hearing him say, “Why is this happening to me?,” his voice shaky. He repeated it several times, a sign he was going into shock, then yelled, “Say something! You’re driving me crazy with the damn silence. Tell me what I did wrong. Give me a name, for godsakes.”

I cracked the slide, chambered a round, then stood over him holding the gun. Parallel to the barrel, I was gripping the ASP light, but it wasn’t on. “They said you won’t talk. So they hired me.”

“Talk? About what? Jesus Christ, ask me anything, I’ll tell you.”

I said, “I don’t get paid to listen,” then extended my arm, pistol a foot from his head. A moment later, I clicked on the ASP light. In the laser-white scintillation, Myles’s eyes widened as if about to be hit by a car. He jerked his head away. “You’re blinding me!”

I said, “I’m doing you a favor,” but then dimmed the little flashlight so only the gun barrel and a wedge of the man’s face were illuminated.

He cracked an eye. “Jesus Christ, I thought you pulled the trigger. It was so damn bright.”

“They say it’s like that.”

“Being shot, you mean?”

“Close your eyes, you tell me.”

He opened his eyes wider. “But you don’t have to kill me now. Seriously, I’ll tell you anything. But I can’t answer unless I know what they want.”

“I’m doing what they want.”

“ Please. At least give me a minute to think this through. Just one minute, I’ll make it right, I swear-and I’ll pay you. An entirely different business deal. Isn’t that fair? I’m wealthy. I can pay you a hundred times more than they paid you.”