Dead Silence

by Randy Wayne White

  I asked, “A congressman? What’s the name?’ ”

  His reply was a snorting noise of refusal.

  “Fraternity boys,” I said, “secret handshakes and drinking songs. Big deal.

  Nels, you’re the guy who’s going to start at the beginning of the story and not stop until you get to the end.”

  He made a blowing sound of frustration, his temper rallying, but he did what I told him to do. This time, he added a few key details.

  Two weeks before, Myles had received the first of several anonymous phone calls. Adult male, Spanish accent: the Cuban interrogator. The Cuban claimed he knew what had happened to Annie Sylvester. Then he proved it by providing details that couldn’t have been gathered from an old police report.

  The Cuban demanded that Myles send him a quarter million dollars U.S., converted into euros, to a Havana address through DSL, an international carrier. He wanted the money sent in three separate packages to increase the odds of at least one package arriving. If Myles didn’t cooperate, the Cuban told him, he would send a letter telling police exactly where to find the girl’s body.

  “He told me I would never hear from him again if I paid,” Myles said in a monotone to let me know how tiresome this was. “But I’m not stupid. I’ve been through it before and I knew he’d want more. But I assumed it would be money, not helping him commit a felony.”

  We were on East Venice Road, a quiet four-lane lined with sable palms. Manatee Civic Center and Desoto Square Mall were to the north, the entrance to Falcon Landing only a few miles away.

  “You’re almost home,” I told him. “Keep talking.”

  Five days ago, Myles continued, on January twentieth—two days before the kidnapping—the Cuban telephoned again. This time, it was from a pay phone in the United States, a 305 area code—Miami. Myles said he’d checked.

  The Cuban said that he and a couple of friends would be arriving on Long Island—at Shelter Point Stables—in two days. They had purchased a crate of illegal weapons and had found a buyer, but the timing had to be right. Because there was a chance the boat they were meeting might not show, the Cuban told Myles he wanted a pit dug where he could cache the weapons until later. He also told him to have his plane fueled and ready in case they needed to fly out fast.

  The pit the Cuban ordered dug was to be six by eight feet and six feet deep—Will Chaser’s grave. When Myles told him it would draw less attention if the pit was big enough for a horse, the man said that would be okay.

  “By then,” Myles said, “I think he was already worried about how they were going to get out of the country. It was just a feeling I had. His English wasn’t great, but he mentioned me being a pilot often enough to make me suspicious. But I didn’t want to do anything to piss him off, so I humored him. You know, so he would trust me. Digging the hole he wanted was no problem.

  “We had an old gelding that had to be put down, so I told my stable manager to schedule a backhoe. I told him to have our contractor dig two holes on the far side of the pasture.”

  It was the first time Myles had mentioned the backhoe or his manager, or that one of the Cubans was worried about how they were getting out of the U.S. I had not asked for the same reason I hadn’t asked who’d shot the expensive stallion. Questions can give more information than they provide.

  “You told him the holes were for graves,” I said.

  “Yes,” Myles said, drumming his fingers on the dash. “It’s what we do when animals die: bury them. But the other hole was for the guns—or whatever it was he was bringing. The Cuban said it’s what they did in the Middle East to hide weapons, bury them. Which made sense to me. It’s on TV all the time.”

  “One old horse, two graves. Did your manager ask why?”

  Myles said, “When I give an order, I don’t wait for questions. Oh . . . there’s something else: The Cuban said they would arrive at the stable late Thursday. He didn’t want anyone else on the property. So I told my manager to go into town Thursday night and get drunk. But I didn’t tell him or anyone else I was returning to the Hamptons.”

  I said, “You ordered him to get drunk.”

  “No, but I knew he would. I spent the previous two nights in Asheville—our family keeps a place there—and landed at the Hamptons jetport around ten p.m., expecting to meet the Spanish-speaking guys at my farm. But the head man called and said something had happened to screw up their plans. He told me I should wait at the landing strip. So I did.”

  I had to ask: “On the plane?”

  He made a gesture of indifference. “Why not? I own it, along with a couple of pilot associates. No one there but a security cop at the gate.”

  I didn’t believe him. I thought it was more likely that Myles had either returned to his farm and met with the Cubans or he’d rendezvoused with Roxanne at some secret meeting place, the Tomlinson estate possibly.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Around eleven Friday morning, my manager called me on the cell and told me someone had broken into one of the stables and shot our best stallion. I hadn’t heard from the Cubans, so I thought, shit, they did it. But the Cuban called about an hour later and said no way, he had nothing to do with it. The police, he said, were crawling all over the place. Why would they cause trouble, give the police a reason to search, when they were sitting there with a crateful of illegal weapons? He said they’d found a good place to hide and that we would leave as soon as it was safe.”

  As the man talked, I was making mental notes, saving my questions until later. “Keep going,” I said.

  “I expected the police to take a couple of hours at most. But I found out later that a couple of low-rung bureaucrats had somehow managed to get a signed search warrant, nothing I could do. They brought the thing I mentioned earlier, the ground-penetrating radar. My idiot manager had gone back to town and was drunk again.”

  I didn’t want him to see how pleased I was. I had screwed up their plans, maybe bought the boy more time.

  Myles said he didn’t hear from the Cubans until about after midnight. During that phone conversation, the head man said he wanted Myles to fly them to a safe place outside the U.S., preferably near Havana. It was the first he’d mentioned it.

  “I told them I couldn’t. I said my plane didn’t have that kind of range, which wasn’t true. But the main problem was that a private plane can’t leave the country, even to Canada, without filing the proper flight plan. I tried to explain to him that we would be tracked. Leave the country and no matter where we go, someone would be waiting when we landed. I didn’t think it would come as such a surprise, but the guy was furious. He acted like he’d been set up in some way and tried to blame me.”

  I said, “Most kidnappers aren’t fussy about FAA regulations.”

  “No, but they worry about who meets them when they get off the plane. There aren’t many truly private jetports in the country—that’s why I bought at Falcon Landing. There’s nothing like it in Canada, or Cuba either, judging from the man’s reaction. I realized he hadn’t been lying about expecting a boat. I don’t know how he was supposed to make contact, but someone stood up him and his partner—as of this morning anyway.”

  Myles told me that when the Cuban finally decided he was telling the truth, he started asking questions. Did Myles know anyone in Florida who owned a big boat? Or an amphibious plane? And what about an airstrip in the Bahamas?

  “I told him I would check my aviation charts,” Myles said, “but I was lying: The Lear team took my plane to Miami this afternoon, in fact, for servicing. So then they focused on finding a boat.

  “Somehow, the man already knew I keep a sixty-eight-foot Tiara at the marina, but he decided the boat was too big. They didn’t have a lot of experience on the water—that’s my impression. My stable manager, though—sometimes he uses one of our guest cottages—my manager owns a thirty-four-foot cabin cruiser and docks it next to my boat, which is embarrassing—a junker, you know?

  “But all I wanted to do was
get rid of those two, so I told them the cabin cruiser was great, it had huge range and where to find the keys. That was this morning, around six a.m., still dark. The Cubans were on the tarmac, the last time I saw them. I just walked away.”

  I said, “Did you tell them where to find the keys to your boat?”

  “I never tell anyone where to find the keys to my boat.”

  “Then you’re sure they took the smaller boat?”

  “Why should I care?” Myles snapped. “I thought I was done with the whole business . . . until you came along.”

  In my mind, I was comparing this version of the story with earlier versions, as Myles said, “My manager lost more than his damn ugly little boat. He doesn’t realize it, but he’s about to be fired.”

  I was picturing the Cubans aboard some junk cruiser, browsing through local charts, seeing hundreds of islands, and Havana Harbor two hundred miles to the south. “You sound heartbroken,” I replied.

  “No, I’ll enjoy it. The man sees himself as some kind of blue-collar hero. When he really is a know-it-all jerk.” Myles gave it a few beats, then decided to test my boundaries. “You and my stable manager have a lot in common. You’d probably hit it off.”

  I replied, “Maybe I’ll come visit one day.”

  “Sure, I can see it—two macho guys bragging about their scars, having fun talking about guns. Stop for a few beers after work, then go bowling on Sundays. Real buddies, I can almost guarantee it.” From the corner of my eye, I could see the man staring at me.

  “You have something against people who work for a living?”

  “See? That’s exactly the sort of thing he would say. No, I don’t. But men like you have something against men like me, men who are successful, who make a difference in the world. That’s how you and my manager are similar. I can understand how galling that must be because there’s really nothing you can do to improve yourselves. It’s not your fault. Genetics—‘paralyzing the hope of reform,’ as Bryan put it. Do you know who I’m talking about?”

  I said, “No,” thinking, William Jennings Bryan, Scopes trial.

  Myles, the Ivy Leaguer, said, “High heritability: Do you have any idea what that means? It has to do with genetics. Human IQs. It applies to animal husbandry, too.”

  “No kidding?”

  “No kidding,” he smiled. “I’m not criticizing, mind you. It’s an observation. We don’t choose our parents or our social class. People like you, and the people who work for me, you’re all a type. There are a lot of mutts out there and not many purebreds.”

  I was picturing Roxanne Sofvia, her expression of hurt and surprise, as he added, “Nothing wrong with either one. Sort of like horses: Some are champions, others pull plows. I think you know where you fit in.” Now the man’s ego was rallying. “No offense,” he said.

  I replied, “Just being in the same car with you, Nels, is offensive enough.”

  The man had a sly, bitter way of laughing as he spoke. “Funny! What a big night it must be for you, having power over someone like me. For a short time anyway.”

  I said, “I think of it as being immunized against a personality disorder: assholishness.”

  “Is that a word?”

  “We use it at the bowling alley all the time. Like getting a shot for something contagious. Like the flu . . .” I gave it a few beats. “Or herpes.”

  The bully inside me enjoyed the man’s sour silence.

  26

  At 8:30 a.m., Saturday, January twenty-fifth, Farfel used his new cell phone to snap a photo of Will Chaser staring up from his coffin, then lobbed a handful of sand at the boy’s face before walking to confer with Hump, who was leaning on a shovel waiting.

  The sand was a farewell gesture of contempt and punishment for the boy’s recent behavior.

  When Hump had pried the lid off the box, after so many hours in darkness the boy had sat up and started bawling. He had stupidly misread the photographic interlude, believing the fresh sunlight signaled freedom instead of what it actually foreshadowed: William Chaser’s last living minutes on the face of the earth.

  The boy had cried so hard that he started coughing, another silly mistake because his mouth was taped. Then he’d begun choking, coughing and choking with such violence that his eyes bulged.

  Panicking, Hump had ripped the tape from the kid’s mouth and the kid instantly began begging for forgiveness and thanking Farfel for his life, crying through the entire scene.

  Disgusting. How many times had broken men asked Farfel for forgiveness? It was a variation of the Stockholm syndrome. As a researcher, Farfel understood that all men have a breaking point. Begging was part of a predictable chain of behavior. But the boy’s perverse gratitude for being hurt and humiliated was unaccountable, a dramatic device used to evoke sympathy.

  The Cuban had experienced it too many times.

  “Shut up!” Farfel had yelled in English. “You’re a disgrace. Show some self-respect.”

  When the boy continued bawling and blabbering for forgiveness, the Cuban had reached to slap him—something Farfel now had to admit was a rare mistake on his part.

  Instantly, the insane young Indian had ceased crying, swung his jaws like a snake, and bit a chunk out of Farfel’s hand the size of a quarter.

  Maricon! Basura!

  In reply, the child’s Spanish improved when he used profanity to call Farfel sick names and threatened to kill him in sick ways until Hump finally silenced the boy with a fresh roll of duct tape.

  Before Farfel took two steps, he turned and used the hand that wasn’t bleeding to toss another clod of sand at the boy and the boy thrust his face forward as if to catch it. Never in the man’s life had he seen such wild hatred, such black, crazed eyes.

  Insane, yes, but at least interesting.

  To Hump, Farfel said, “While I transmit the photo, nail the lid shut and bury the brat. After all the trouble he’s caused us? Don’t kill him. I want him to have some time with the worms before he dies.”

  Touching the side of his head gingerly, Hump agreed, saying, “I’m worried I’m gonna lose my ear. You should make a poultice for your hand. The Devil Child’s teeth contain a poison, I believe.”

  Farfel said, “Quit complaining and listen! Fill the hole, then use your weight to stomp around on the sand. Pack it smooth. That’s important. We don’t want anyone to spot it from the air.”

  “Pack the sand smooth,” Hump repeated, making a mental list.

  “After that, connect the battery to the fan and aim it so it’s blowing toward the pipe. I don’t care how close you put it, or even if the damn thing works, but it’s part of the agreement. We should be in Havana by sunset, but if something else goes wrong”—Farfel’s expression warned It better not!—“it would look bad in court if there was no fan as we promised.”

  “Connect the fan,” Hump repeated, “but after I fill in the hole first?”

  “Yes. Is that so complicated?”

  Hump had something on his mind, Farfel could tell by the giant’s twitching. He was working up the nerve to say, “My ears are still making a terrible boom-boom sound because of the rock the boy attacked me with. Is it possible I have a concussion? Something serious damaged inside my brain?”

  Now Farfel’s expression read No . . . even if I said it, he wouldn’t get it.

  “Dr. Navárro,” Hump continued, “just burying the brat doesn’t seem enough. While the coffin lid is off, couldn’t I first punish him in some small way by—”

  “No! Hurry up and do what I told you. I want to be in the boat, on our way to Cuba, before the FBI starts analyzing the photo.”

  Farfel walked away, concentrating on his new cell phone, a BlackBerry that could send photos over the Internet. He’d bought it on the black market in Havana using some of the money Nelson Myles, the rich child killer, had provided.

  Farfel had first learned of Myles from an American soldier at Hoa Lo Prison, downtown Hanoi. The POW’s name was Billy Sofvia, who said he had worked fo
r Myles and helped him bury a girl the rich man had murdered.

  The soldier Billy Sofvia had a higher pain tolerance than most Americans—that was the objective of the Cuban Program: chart the pain thresholds of different racial and social groups. But Farfel had finally broken Sofvia using a technique of his own invention. Hump’s late father, Angel Valencia Yanquez, an intelligent man, had also contributed, but it was René Navárro’s concept.

  The method employed a low-voltage wire that was inserted up the urethra into the bladder, harmless in terms of the urinary tract and reproductive function but devastating psychologically. Inserting a low-voltage wire through the corner of a man’s eye into his frontal lobe did far more actual damage but wasn’t nearly as effective, as data had proven.

  Fear, Farfel had learned early in his career, was a far more effective weapon than guns or bombs.

  Sofvia had confessed to every sin he had committed and then moved on to the sins of people he knew in the U.S.

  Farfel had kept careful notes during his years in Vietnam. He had continued keeping notes as an interrogator-for-hire in Panama and the Middle East. He had cataloged the sins of many prisoners but was particularly interested in the sins of wealthy employers the prisoners knew back home. Farfel had filed that information away, hoping it would be valuable when the politics of Cuba changed.

  It had been a wise thing to do.

  Nelson Myles was so incredibly wealthy that Farfel had decided to allow him to live. The man might be useful later if Farfel ever made it back to Cuba. But so much had gone wrong that he was beginning to have doubts.

  It had seemed so easy in the beginning. As a scientist, he was now surprised by his own naïveté. But he was even more surprised by their run of bad luck.

  While living as a peasant in Havana, working as a common barber, Farfel had read about the famous Hamptons. He had often dreamed of visiting the place.

  Farfel had imagined himself at expensive restaurants, chatting with famous artists or in bed with the daughter or wife of his eager host. Yet even though Myles had cooperated—with the exception of offering his wife—Farfel now felt a welling dread when he thought of the Hamptons, all because of the insane boy.