Deep Zone

by Tim Green

  But Troy never touched Ty. He simply skirted past and kept going without a word. Ty turned and followed Troy with his eyes as he darted through the crowd.

  Troy stopped at the corner of the tall hedge beyond the reflecting pool. A tall, handsome man wearing a tuxedo put a hand on Troy’s shoulder, grinning widely. When the two of them disappeared around the corner of the hedge, Ty turned to see that both Tate and Troy’s mom had their backs to him, still in deep conversation with the Falcons player.

  Curiosity overwhelmed Ty, and without thinking he took off after Troy. He rounded the corner of the hedge and saw the last glimpse of Troy as he and the tall man stepped into the opening of another hedge at the far side of a wide flower garden. Under the heavy moon, the dark shapes of two more grown-ups followed close behind. Ty had no idea who they were or where they’d come from but could only think of a nature show he’d seen where two snakes followed a mouse back into its hole.

  Ty looked back and saw no sign of Thane in the crowd. Tate and Troy’s mom still didn’t seem to know he or Troy had gone. Ty set aside caution and kept going. He wasn’t going to make a fool out of himself by running back to his big brother, scared of every little shadow. He could only presume the man Troy was with was his father, and even though he was a wanted man, he didn’t sound so bad. Ty would scope things out before he alerted anyone else. If Troy was with his father and Ty ruined it, Tate was as likely to despise Ty as Troy was.

  When Ty reached the far side of the garden, he saw that the hedges had been cut into a maze that looked like it went on quite some way. Ty took a breath and stepped inside with only the moon to light his path. He turned and twisted and tried to keep moving in the direction of the moon. Each shadow startled him. He heard a noise, froze, and changed his mind, confused at how he’d ever let his feet carry him this far. He was lost.

  Ty whispered aloud to himself. “What am I doing?”

  The man Troy was with might be his father, but if that was true, that same man was wanted by the FBI. He was a fugitive. The two men following them could be anybody. Whether Troy and Tate hated him for intruding or not, the smart thing was to go back and get some help.

  That’s what he should have done from the beginning, but it all had happened so fast, and his mind had been spinning. Now, lost and alone, Ty headed back in the direction of the party’s noise. He turned several corners and thought he had only returned to the same spot. When he heard the low voices of two men just through the hedge, he froze. The voices moved, and Ty realized they were heading his way. Just before they rounded the corner, Ty took off.

  He ran with every ounce of speed he had, no longer paying attention to the moon or the sound of the party, only trying to distance himself from the men. Running full tilt, he scratched his face and arms as he cut the corners of the hedges. When he saw an opening in the maze up ahead, he took off for it and bolted free from the prison of shrubs and into an empty space, where he tripped and landed on his face in a patch of grass.

  Even as he fell, he realized where he was. The marina’s hut squatted next to the boats like an ogre, and the moonlight glittered off the rippling water.

  Ty scrambled to his feet the instant he went down, with the intention of running for the pool area, but he was too late. The two men sprang from the maze and pounced on him like cats. They gripped his arms, and the sight of their faces sent a shiver of fear through Ty’s frame that left him limp, helpless, and silent.

  Bennie the Blade wore the small smirk of a killer on his face, but that didn’t scare Ty as much as the other face. White teeth glowed from the mouth of Big Al’s nephew. Pete Bonito leaned close to Ty, breathing heavy and leaving the taste of sardines, alcohol, and hair gel in the air. His jet-black flattop glistened and his bug eyes bulged.

  Both men were dressed for the party in tuxedos.

  “Well, look what we got here.” Bonito’s voice was gruff, deep, and raspy. “It’s that kid we wanted to talk to a couple weeks ago, ain’t it, Zipper?”

  They tightened their grips on Ty’s arms.

  Soft and sure came Bennie the Blade’s voice. “Yeah, it is. It’s that kid.”

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  BENNIE THE BLADE TOOK out a roll of duct tape and expertly bound Ty’s wrists. He then tore off a stubby rectangular piece that he plastered across Ty’s mouth. Ty’s eyes went wide with fear as the mobsters lifted him off his feet and carried him toward the dock. They rounded the corner of the thatch-roofed shack toward the boat slips. Ty was certain they were going to throw him in, until he saw Troy’s face staring up at him from the seat in the middle of Gumbo’s swamp boat.

  Ty hadn’t imagined he could ever feel so glad to see Troy White, but he was. Somehow, he felt like Troy’s presence would keep them from tossing him into the dark water.

  “What are you doing to him?” Troy obviously wasn’t the least bit afraid of these men. His voice was demanding and insulted.

  “Easy, kid,” Bonito said. “He’s just gonna take a little ride with you and your dad because this kid just can’t keep his nose out of other people’s business.”

  “Take that off his mouth,” Troy said, pointing at Ty’s gag. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Bonito put a finger to his lips. “Shhh. You don’t want your dad going to jail, do you? We got to keep your buddy here quiet if you want to have a little father-and-son time together. That’s what you want, don’t you?”

  The man standing in the back of the boat with his hand on the motor’s long arm quickly turned around. He nodded at Troy, signaling for him to agree with Bonito. Ty studied the man in the boat. He was handsome, with thick eyebrows and the weatherworn face of a cowboy, a big man with long, thick limbs. He wore a tuxedo. On his wrist was a slim gold watch. There was no mistaking his relationship with Troy. He was the man the FBI was after. The man who stole a lot of money. The man who was mixed up with some really bad people.

  Ty looked at Bonito and the Blade and wondered if Troy had any idea how bad.

  “It’s okay, Troy.” Troy’s dad turned to start the motor. “Your friend will be fine.”

  Troy looked at Ty with concern and didn’t deny Ty was his friend. Ty wondered why but was thankful for it because he felt like it might keep these men from doing something bad to him.

  “Drew, your kid’s phone.” Bonito motioned his chin toward Troy.

  Drew held out his hand. “Troy, I need your cell phone.”

  “Why?”

  “Troy, please. We don’t have time for me to explain right now. I need it. It’s very important.”

  Troy reluctantly took the cell phone from his pants pocket and handed it to his dad. His dad handed it to Bonito before returning his attention to the outboard motor and yanking its pull cord. The motor coughed blue smoke, but caught and raced with a high-pitched whine until Troy’s dad backed off the gas. The mobsters took a quick look around, then hustled Ty into the boat, seating him next to Troy and shoving the boat off into the water. Ty inhaled sharply, then breathed a sigh of relief through his nose as the distance between them and the mobsters grew. The two men in tuxedos turned and crossed the grass, then disappeared, not in the direction of the party, but toward the parking lot.

  “You said we could get a pizza and hang out. Why are we going into the swamp?” Troy spoke accusingly to his father.

  “Sh.” Drew put a finger to his lips the same way Bonito had. “I’ve already got the pizza. Let me get us away from here, and we’ll talk. You don’t want me to get caught, do you?”

  They rode in silence with the moonlight guiding the way. Troy stared at his father, and his facial expressions went back and forth between admiration and anger. Ty wondered at the sight they must make, two boys in suits and ties riding through the Everglades in a swamp boat driven by an outlaw in a tuxedo.

  They went right, then left, then right again, and that’s when Ty began to choke with fear. He knew now why they hadn’t simply tossed him into the water near the dock. People would find a dead kid
floating there, but they wouldn’t find him floating in a deep dark pool of man-eaters. They wouldn’t find anything, not even the scraps.

  As they eased through the last bit of the creek, Ty had no fear left for the spider crabs scuttling across the branches overhead and occasionally dropping into the boat. His fear was focused on the wide pool of alligators up ahead.

  When they emerged from the mangroves into the black pool, Ty instinctively moved away from Troy’s dad.

  Troy’s dad let up on the gas.

  “Hey,” he said, “easy, kid. You’ll tip us all in. Hey, kid. Cut it out.”

  Troy’s dad reached for Ty, but Ty escaped to the front of the boat.

  “Come here, kid.”

  Troy’s dad grabbed the edges of the boat and climbed over the middle seat, past Troy, and headed steadily toward Ty. Ty had backed himself all the way into the bow of the boat when something thrashed in the water behind him.

  Troy’s father growled angrily and reached for Ty.

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  TROY’S DAD GRABBED THE lapels of Ty’s jacket. Ty felt the empty space behind him. He twisted and lost his footing, but Troy’s dad yanked him back into the boat with tremendous strength, and Ty landed on the floor of the metal boat, bottom first, with a thud.

  “Be careful. Are you crazy? Stop rocking. There’s gators in this water.”

  Ty nodded his head that he knew and groaned through the tape.

  “Let me get that off you.” Troy’s dad slowly peeled back the tape from Ty’s mouth.

  “Are you throwing me in?” The words squeaked out of Ty’s mouth.

  Troy’s dad laughed. “Why would you think that?”

  Ty shrugged. “They tied me up.”

  “They’re just nervous, and a little heavy-handed. Don’t worry. I’ve got some sodas and pizza for you guys in the fish shack, an Xbox, too. Just sit still.”

  Troy’s dad returned to the motor, opened the throttle, and cruised across the pool of man-eaters with the metal boat’s flat bottom slapping the water’s ripples. Troy looked at Ty, raised his hands up, and gave Ty an apologetic look.

  At the back of the pool, a channel opened up into more mangroves, but on one side the fringe of an island soon appeared. The fish camp had been built at the very edge of the channel so that as they pulled up alongside its dock, they could see up into the second-story windows, black and empty as the sockets of a skull. The siding of the camp hadn’t seen a coat of paint in twenty years, if it had seen one at all. The graying wood suffered from mold, moss, and white streaks of bird poop. The fish shack was the same Seminole fish camp Gumbo had spoken of, and Ty wondered if Troy’s dad knew the history of its criminal past.

  They pulled in with the nose of the boat facing the island. The dock provided access to the fish camp door and led to a dirt path that disappeared into the island’s thick growth of trees.

  As scary as the whole thing was, Ty looked up at the moon, thankful for its yellow glow. They got out and Ty moved cautiously along the dock, whose boards seemed soft and ready to give way any second. He was relieved to finally step across the threshold and into the camp. Troy’s dad hit a switch. Somewhere from the trees Ty heard a motor fire up. He knew it was the sound of a generator when the lights flickered on.

  Gray plywood floors opened up into a kitchen area and a great room separated by a long plank table. A sagging couch with fat matching chairs filled the room with the smell of mold. On the walls, gator skins hung along with stuffed fish and bird feathers of every kind. The treasure of wildlife trophies included a yellow-eyed black jaguar in one corner, flanked by a skunk, an armadillo, a turkey, and the skin of what Ty knew must have been one of the giant Burmese pythons. Even the memory of that massive snake made him shudder.

  On the floor not too far from the couch sat a flat-screen TV, fresh from its box, along with an Xbox and two red controllers.

  “Well?” Troy’s dad said, heading for the kitchen. “It’s not home, but it’ll do for what we need.”

  “Need for what?” Troy asked his father.

  Troy’s father clapped his hands together and rubbed them as if he were cold. “Let me get that pizza and some drinks, and we’ll get everything all straight. Don’t you worry about a thing. This is gonna work out great and everyone will be happy. I promise. Go ahead, you two sit down at the table.”

  Ty sat.

  “What about the tape on Ty’s wrists?” Troy asked.

  Troy’s father looked up from the box of pizza he had opened. “Uh, let’s just leave that for now. No offense, but I don’t want my partners showing up and making a fuss. They get irritated pretty easily, and I’m not even sure how they’re going to handle me taking the tape off his mouth.”

  Troy gave Ty another apologetic look. Troy’s father plunked down paper plates loaded with cheese slices in front of them along with two cans of soda before he sat at the head of the table with a look of satisfaction. “There, that’ll fill you up.”

  Ty felt suddenly starved. He looked at Troy before using his bound-up hands to guide a slice of pie into his mouth, chewing greedily and swallowing before using both hands to take a slug of soda that left him burping.

  Troy didn’t touch the food. He stared intently at his father. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Come on. Kids love pizza.” Troy’s father took a bite of his own and wiped a string of cheese from his chin. “You said you’d love to have some and hang out.”

  “No, Dad. There’s something more. I get not letting Ty go back and tell anyone, but keeping his hands taped up? I want to know what’s going on. I don’t care who those guys are, you don’t just kidnap my friend.”

  The word hung in the air. The sound of it startled Ty. It was true.

  He had been kidnapped.

  Chapter Sixty

  “NOBODY’S KIDNAPPING ANYONE,” TROY’S dad said. “He’s just along for the ride.”

  “What would my mom think?” Troy asked.

  “Your mom?” Troy’s dad’s eyebrows weighed heavy beneath a wrinkled forehead as he growled, “What’s your mom got to do with us?”

  “Dad, the last time I saw you, there were police helicopters in the air and you jumped off a bridge into the Chattahoochee.”

  Troy’s father put on a sly grin. “The last time you saw me was on Lincoln Road.”

  “I knew it was you.” Troy’s face seemed to soften.

  “And at the Atlanta zoo.” Troy’s dad kept grinning. “And when you were sitting outside on the patio at Wright’s Gourmet Sandwich Shoppe. And after the championship game.”

  “I mean the last time I talked to you.” Troy looked suddenly tired. “You’re in trouble, Dad.”

  “And this”—Troy’s father waved his hands around the room at the stuffed dead animals and their skins—“this is going to get me out of it! I won’t have any trouble after this, Son. You have to help me. This is my chance.”

  “What are you talking about?” Troy’s mouth fell open, and Ty froze.

  “I’m talking about Super Bowl Sunday.” Troy’s father sat on the edge of his chair with his hands flat on the plank table as if he were ready to jump up out of his seat. “These people can fix everything for me. They’re going to pay every debt, and I still get a million dollars on top of that! I can start over, Troy. Easy Street.”

  “The FBI wants you.”

  Troy’s dad waved his hand again. “These people can give me a new identity. New Social Security number. Plastic surgery. Everything. The government isn’t the only one who can hide people away.”

  “Why would they give you a million dollars? What are you talking about?”

  “The game. The line is Falcons by seven. That’s with you helping call the plays. Without you, they’ll be lucky to win, let alone beat the point spread.”

  “Gambling?” Troy asked.

  His father nodded. “Of course. This is the biggest event in gambling history. It’s the Super Bowl! Without you, we know who wins.”

  �
��Without me?”

  “Sure. That’s all you have to do. Just sit here until Sunday night, you and your friend. Then you head right back to the hotel. You spent some time with your dad before he went away, and your friend here took a boat ride and got lost in the swamp. That’s all. It’s so simple. So perfect!”

  Ty nodded. He was scared to death and just thankful that the plan included him being returned to his brother safely. He wanted to play in the championship and win the tournament on Sunday, but none of that mattered when you compared it to not being fed to the man-eaters and being set free.

  “Well, that’s not happening.” Troy glared at his father with disgust and what might also have been hatred. Troy jumped up from his chair and headed for the door.

  Troy’s dad sprang, leaping over the table. Troy had his hand on the door handle when his father grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked him back into a bear hug. Troy kicked and flailed, but his father was too strong and he carried him over to the couch, where he dumped him and stood towering over him. Troy sat straight and gripped the cushions beneath him.

  Ty sat straight, too, and had to catch his breath.

  Troy and his father were nose to nose, both of them glaring with flared nostrils, neither one backing down.

  “My mother will know I’m gone.” Troy spit out the words. “She’ll look for me, and she’ll find me.”

  A smile grew at the corners of his father’s mouth. “Your mother? Yeah, she’ll look. That I know, but she ain’t gonna find you. You want me to tell you why, smart guy? Because by now she already got a text message from your phone telling her you’re with me in Miami and not to follow us. That’s right, but they will follow us. It’ll be an all-out manhunt for the NFL’s football genius, and the police and the FBI will trace the cell tower the text was sent from and they’ll see it came from downtown Miami. Yeah, Pete Bonito took a special trip down there just to send the message, and that’s where they’ll all look, everyone. The police, the FBI, and your mother, too.”

  An idea flashed into Ty’s mind like a lightning bolt. He might be able to save himself and Troy, but he’d have only one chance and very little time to do it.