The Rules of Silence

by David Lindsey

  Chapter 5

  At that moment a fourth man came through the laurel allée as if he'd been there all along and approached the courtyard from the side. He stepped into the pale light spilling off the veranda.

  “Don't be alarmed, Mr. Titus Cain, ”he said with Spanishaccented English, “you are safe. Perfectly safe. Please, everything is fine.”

  He stopped at the edge of the veranda as if awaiting permission to go farther. Of average height and weight, he was perhaps sixty-four, sixty-five, with wavy, gray-streaked hair. A narrow nose, long upper lip. Nice looking. He was wearing a dove gray suit and a white shirt with broad navy stripes, very English, no tie, the collar open, the suit coat buttoned.

  “I've come to visit with you, Mr. Cain, to have a conversation about concerns of mutual interest.”

  Titus clung to fragments of logic. His alarm system was the best. So these people had to be very good. The fountain was on the same circuit. He hoped they hadn't killed the dogs.

  “I would like to sit down with you, ”the man said, holding his hand out to one of the wrought-iron chairs as if asking permission.

  Titus couldn't bring himself to speak or even nod.

  The man stepped onto the veranda and approached politely. Watching Titus carefully, as if he were trying to discern his disposition, he pulled one of the chairs away from the table and sat down. His suit was silk. Very silk. French cuffs, the glint of a discreet gold bracelet on his right wrist. Gold ring with a cabochon garnet.

  Slowly, as if he were demonstrating there were no tricks up his sleeve, he reached into his coat pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes. He offered one to Titus, who just stared at him. The man took one for himself and lighted it, laying the pack on the table with the lighter.

  “My name is Alvaro, ”he said. He smoked. “What I am about to tell you will take some lengthy explanation, ”he said, “but from this moment, Mr. Cain, I am afraid that you must consider yourself secuestrado. ”

  Titus gaped at him.

  “Yes, kidnapped, ”Alvaro said.

  The shadow men stayed in the shadow courtyard. Titus heard the coyotes now, yippingyippingyipping on the far side of the valley, below the amber lights of houses clustered near the crests of the next ridge of hills.

  Alvaro smoked, clenching his teeth as though there were something tart but savory in the taste of the cigarette before opening his lips to exhale.

  “First of all, ”he said, “I must give you a few moments to control yourself, to comprehend the reality of your situation. For the next half hour or so, I am going to explain to you how your life has changed. ¿Bueno?”

  Titus's ears were ringing. His face was hot, and he felt a little giddy.

  “As you must already know, ”Alvaro went on, “this kind of enterprise is much practiced in Latin America. In the past it has been a very crude business, and it still is most of the time. Unnecessarily complicated for everyone. Idiots in the mountains holding hostages in filthy conditions. The idiot K and R people based in London or Paris or Washington negotiating with the idiots in the mountains on behalf of the sweaty corporate lackey worrying about how much his employer's insurance is going to go up. Wild demands negotiated down to stupidly small sums. Imbecilic police.”

  Titus was dumbstruck. This guy just wasn't for real. It was like going to the theater with Rita, one of those productions in the round where the actors come out into the audience to include them in the drama. He was always uneasy with that.

  Alvaro rested his right elbow on the arm of his chair, his forearm vertical, cigarette tucked deep into the crotch of his first and second fingers. His eyes grew lazy.

  “Forget all of that, ”he said, flicking his hand dismissively. “As you will see, this is something quite different altogether. First, this is occurring right here in the U.S.—Texas, no less— not in Latin America.

  “Second, we are not going to take you away. No. You are free to go on living your life normally, as you please.

  “Third, no negotiations. No haggling.

  “Fourth, no police, no federal authorities, no intermediaries, no K and R guys. In fact, no one will ever know that this has even happened.”

  Titus's adrenaline high had greatly heightened his perceptions. The sticky smack of phlegm in Alvaro's throat when he spoke certain words was amplified to the point of distraction. And though the light on the veranda was only a glow, Alvaro sat before him in sharp three-dimensional clarity, outlined very precisely from the darkness behind him, his face glimmering like a hologram.

  “I have gone to a great deal of trouble to learn about you,” Alvaro went on. He looked around and lifted his chin. “This house, for example, is as familiar to me as my own home. I could find the light switches in every room in the darkness. I know your company and its history inside out. I know your biography better than my own father's.”

  He spoke with a grounded sureness, without animation, his voice almost devoid of inflection.

  Titus hadn't taken another swallow of his beer. He was entranced. Immobile, he waited for the emerging revelation. It was like seeing the moment of his own death coming down a long road, a small speck, slowly, slowly growing larger as it made its shambling approach. It was a horrible thing to see, and fascinating. He couldn't pull himself away from the spectacle of it, even to flee.

  Alvaro continued. “CaiText is worth two hundred and fifty-six million dollars, Mr. Cain. I want the equivalent of a quarter of that.”

  In the warm breeze of the summer night, Titus went slowly, serenely cold.

  Alvaro waited, seemingly understanding what Titus was going through.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Cain? We have a long way to go yet.”

  Titus couldn't answer.

  “The most important thing in this entire negotiation, ”Alvaro said, “is secrecy. I want to acquire the money in clean, legal silence. Indirectly, of course. Through business arrangements.”

  Titus's mind latched on to the words business arrangements . Reality. Something he could wrestle with. Something he understood. The hallucination shuddered.

  The embodied shadows drifted now and again in the darkness, and like the hour hand of a clock, they moved without moving. They were here, and then they were elsewhere. But they were always there.

  “What kind of business arrangements? ”Titus finally managed to ask. A negotiation. A deal, something that required him to rein in his wildly scattered thoughts.

  “I have a number of enterprises that I want you to invest in, ”Alvaro answered. “Foreign enterprises. You will be given opportunities to invest in international charities. Good causes. All of them are front companies through which the money will wash away to places unknown.”

  He smoked the cigarette again, clenched his teeth, parted his lips, and let the stench seep out into the air. Titus thought he saw an ocherous tint to the smoke, to the edges of it, maybe. The stench seemed not to have its source in the cigarette so much as in Alvaro's own rancid nostrils or, more precisely, from somewhere within him.

  “Why me?”

  “Oh, there are many reasons, Mr. Cain, but there are a few obvious ones. Neither you nor your company is flamboyant. You keep a very low profile. You are relatively small, but the company has been a solid and profitable enterprise for more than a decade. And you have refused to take it public. You are a wholly owned, private company. You are CaiText. You answer to no one, normally an enviable position.”

  Titus could hardly make himself formulate the next question in his mind, but it wouldn't go away. It kept trying to take shape, a venomous idea lingering in the place of hazy fears at the back of his mind.

  “And why, ”Titus heard himself say, his stomach tightening, “would I do this?”

  Alvaro closed his eyes lazily and nodded as he drew on his foul cigarette. “Yes, of course, ”he said. He stared at Titus as if making judgments about him, about how much to tell him or about how to tell him. “There will be critical junctures in our negotiations, moments when I will
expect you to perform precisely as I've directed. There will be certain criteria that you will be expected to meet. Maintaining secrecy. Meeting deadlines. Following precise instructions. There will be no, as they say, no wiggle room in your response to these instructions.”

  He paused for emphasis.

  “I am not a patient man, ”Alvaro added. “I will never say to you, ‘The next time you don't follow instructions …’No. You will receive instructions only once. And to answer your question, why would you do this … It's very simple. People are going to start dying, and they will die at a rate of my own choosing based upon how well I think you are cooperating. And they will continue to die until I have sixty-four million dollars.”

  Chapter 6

  Titus should have seen it coming, but he hadn't. The hallucinatory feel of his situation returned instantaneously. The flagstones on the veranda swung around and floated above him, and the fountain in the courtyard hovered upside down over the dark night sky that spread out in front of him like a black valley rich with sparkling flowers.

  Jesus Christ. Jesus. Christ.

  “We have to move on, Mr. Cain, ”Alvaro said.

  Titus looked at him. “Move on?”

  “Yes. Do you understand your situation?”

  He understood what this guy had said, yes. But he was still waiting for it to seem real.

  “Mr. Cain, do you understand?”

  Titus would try. He would address the business of this … hallucination, and he would follow the lines of logic.

  “Yeah, ”Titus said, “I understand. ”It just didn't seem real. “When … am I going to learn more about the ‘business arrangements'?”

  “Soon.”

  “You don't want it all at once?”

  “Oh, I'll take it all at once, but I happen to know that you can't get it that quickly. However, I'll want the first payment immediately.”

  “How much will that be?”

  “I'll let you know.”

  Titus quickly ran over his personal assets in his mind. How much was this maniac going to ask for? Titus was beginning to come around, as if he were regaining consciousness. “My financial people will be flabbergasted if I start dumping millions. It won't make any sense to them.”

  “You'll have to be creative to avoid curiosity, ”Alvaro said. “I don't want anyone suspicious about what you're going to be doing. That would be unacceptable.”

  “What kind of enterprises are you talking about?”

  “Oh, a wide variety. I'll get to that later. The main thing is, when all is said and done it must appear that you've simply made a series of business decisions that have resulted in these unfortunate losses. Everything you do has to lead to that appearance. The way you set up these acquisitions, all of it.”

  “I'll look like a fool for making decisions like that, ”Titus said.

  “I have people who will work with you, ”Alvaro said, “to give it the best face possible. ”He paused. “But, really, I don't give a damn about how it will make you look, one way or the other. You need to understand that. So long as it isn't suspicious. That's the important thing. I really can't emphasize that enough.”

  Moment by moment, reality was filtering back into Titus's thinking. The disabling numbness of shock lessened, and he came to himself as if he were awakening from a drugged stupor. Fear was still there, potent and sweaty, and there was a stirring of resistance, too. Though he was still reeling, there was a germinating seed of anger.

  “As for your law enforcement agencies, ”Alvaro said, “don't do it. It's a gamble. If you call them, and you are able to keep it hidden from me temporarily, you may indeed save your money. But I will find out about it sooner or later, and then it will cost you your peace of mind for the rest of your life. If I can't get to you, I'll get to people you know. Friends. Family. You will be responsible for what happens to all of them, for everyone you've ever known.”

  He paused and lolled his head as if weary of trying to be convincing.

  “Mr. Cain, believe me, I've done it all before. I know the tricks men want to play. I know that after I leave here tonight you will begin scheming of ways to escape your situation with your money and your life intact. I know you will do this because you are an intelligent man—after all”—he spread his arms out and looked around him—“look at the fortune you have created by your own ingenuity, your own cleverness. No? So, who am I to come in here and give you instructions, do this, do that, as if you were stupid and couldn't figure out a way to outsmart me? Right?

  “But … listen to me, Mr. Cain. ”Alvaro lifted his chin and pronounced his next words with exaggerated care. “You-cannot-do-it. And if you try, you will create a fucking monster. As of tonight your life has changed, as surely as if you had discovered a terrible disease inside you, and there is nothing you can do about it. The only thing in your power regarding this situation is to do as you are told. It will save lives.”

  He cocked his head at Titus. “And that's no small thing, is it?”

  Again, Titus was speechless. How could he possibly respond to such … insanity? He couldn't even formulate a question that didn't seem surreal.

  A tiny red light out in the courtyard caught Titus's eye, just a couple of winks and it was gone, and one of the dark smudges drifted away from the others and stood alone. Titus could hear the man talking. His head was throbbing. He reached out and put his now tepid bottle of beer on the wrought-iron table.

  “Suicide, ”Titus said abruptly.

  “That's always an option, ”Alvaro said, unfazed. “But you're really not the issue. I want the money. I don't care if I get it from you or from your wife. It's irrelevant to me. The important thing is that I get it.”

  “I could put it all into a trust. I wouldn't have any control over it.”

  “Mr. Cain, please understand: People die if I don't get the money. It's not a matter of how clever you can be, or how clever your lawyers can be. Anything you do that prevents the transfer of sixty-four million to me will cause people to die. You go to the FBI, they die. You find a financial escape hatch, even more people die. It's very simple.”

  “How many people? ”Titus asked stupidly. But he thought of only one person. Rita. Jesus Christ. Rita's face lodged in his mind—an unthinkable association that crowded out the faceless plurality of all the others that might have been there.

  “How many people do you know? ”Alvaro asked. It was a ghoulish response that left no doubt that he would take it fur ther than Titus could bear. Titus didn't answer.

  “Well, ”Alvaro said, turning in his chair with a little gesture to the shadows, “that covers the big picture.”

  Titus heard the dogs and then saw them coming, lumbering along through the allée of laurels with their noses down, scanning the earthy scents. They were happy to be out of wherever they were being kept and came onto the veranda and straight to Titus.

  He bent to the dogs and petted them firmly, as they liked. It was so good to see them. This was reality; these slobbering, affectionate old friends were reality.

  But when the dogs turned to Alvaro, expecting the same treatment, he stopped them with a scolding grunt. They flinched away, casting puzzled, wary glances at him, and then stood looking at him, their tails hanging still.

  In that moment Alvaro made another gesture, and Titus saw a flash from the shadows and heard a muffled pumft! pumft! pumft! pumft! The first dog's head flew back, and he dropped on his folded legs, his brains thrown twenty feet back against doors into the house. The second dog, caught in midturn, stumbled as if tripping, the bullets catching his brain at such an angle as to buy him another millisecond. He emitted a muffled yowl, and his hindquarters collapsed, and for an instant his front legs remained rigid, refusing death, his head extended awkwardly as if to maintain his balance. And then he went down.

  Titus was on his feet instinctively, which brought the shadows instantly into the light at the edge of the veranda. Three men, Hispanics in dark street clothes, small, high-tech automatic we
apons, headphones.

  Alvaro was as cool as boredom. He put his hand up and signed for Titus to step back away from him. Titus did, his heart rattling around in his chest, driven by fear and fury and simple astonishment. Alvaro stood and moved closer to his men, closer to the dark. He lifted his chin at the dogs.

  “It's that easy, Mr. Cain. ”He shrugged. “Friends. Relatives. Strangers. I hand them into your safekeeping. Don't hand them back to me. They're all dogs to me.”

  He turned and stepped into the darkness.

  Chapter 7

  Titus stood on the veranda as if he had just walked out of the house and had forgotten what he'd come to do. He stared at the silent fountain in the courtyard and listened to the cars starting in the drive at the front of the house. He heard car doors slamming and heard the cars driving away, their engines fading as they wound their way down the hill and into the night.

  He turned and looked at the dogs. Jesus. He had to think. He had to be clearheaded. He had to think things through all the way to their logical conclusions.

  After walking over to the first dog, he knelt and worked his hands underneath. He was warm and limp and bloodsoaked. Titus avoided looking at his head. When he picked him up he felt that odd density of death, a strange thing he had known before with animals, how they seemed so much heavier after they had died.

  He carried the dog through the courtyard, into the allée of mountain laurels and out into the darkness, where a broad, sloping path led down to the orchard. At the back of the orchard, where the only light was the reflected glow of the city lights haloed over the ridge of hills, he put the dog down on a flat plot of thick Bermuda grass. Then he returned for the second dog.

  With a pickax and shovel he got from the reservoir work site a hundred yards away, he began digging in the loam. It took him the better part of an hour to get the hole deep enough to discourage the coyotes and feral cats from digging them up, and then he laid the two dogs one on top of the other and filled in the hole.