Trapped (11 page)

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says. “Not the sneaking-around part, exactly, but the fright-

ened-out-of-their-wits part. He’s sick with worry, just like you.”

“Because his son took off with my daughter?” I ask,

dreading the answer.

Shane says, “Or because his son has been abducted, and

he’s been warned not to contact the police.”

18. Calling All Fathers

It’s after midnight and Ricky can’t sleep. Lying a foot or

so from Myla on the custom king, he just can’t make it hap-

pen. Too many things going on. His sleep button is stuck and

the pills no longer work. White man’s medicine, all it does

is slow his thoughts a few miles per hour, not nearly enough

to let his mind rest.

Only thing to do when this happens, he decides, is get up,

keep moving. Forward motion pushes all the crazy thoughts

to the back of his head, prevents them from bouncing. Saved

by gravity or momentum, or whatever the hell it is.

Ricky slips out of bed, leaves Myla sleeping like a curled-

up kitten, a slender hand draped over her eyes. He prowls his

new house in the dark, naked. Bare feet cool on the tiles,

walking a circuit that takes him through the kitchen, into the

hallway, past the three bedrooms he furnished for his chil-

dren, around through the entertainment alcove, and back into

the dining room. Sodium lights coming though the slats like

knife-cuts on the tile floors.

Step on a crack, he’s thinking, break the motherfucker’s

back.

On his third circuit Ricky leans into Tyler’s room. Disney

World poster, bed like a race car, brightly painted. No Tyler

tonight. Sometimes there’s a shape in the bed that might be

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his little boy, but not tonight. Decides not to check on Alicia

and Reya because the girls will be with Tyler, all three

together, forever and ever, amen.

The new house, big as it is, is too small to contain him. In

the laundry room he slips into a pair of elastic-waisted, cotton

gym shorts, heads into the four-bay garage. No shirt, no

shoes, he loves the feeling of air on his skin, believes he can

soak up oxygen, make himself stronger. He decides, on im-

pulse, to leave the Beemer and take Myla’s new convertible

Mini Cooper. Pushes the driver’s seat as far back as it will

go, his big arms cocked over the sides. Thinking he must look

like one of those Shriners driving a toy car for the kids. All

he needs is the funny hat.

Ha, ha, ha, he laughs all the way to the airstrip. Not quite

to the airstrip, actually, because the ruts and potholes on the

final approach are bigger than the Mini. So he parks the little

car in the brush, goes the last couple of miles on foot, snorting

great drafts of muggy, night-swamp air though his flaring

nostrils. The odor of ancient muck, animal scat and the thin,

delicious scent of slow-moving water. Thinking, this is how

the old-timers did it, hunting more or less naked, alive to the

world, paying attention with all the nerves of their bodies.

Ricky feels power flowing into him, and a soothing

calmness that slows his brain, stops it from spinning like an

off-kilter gyroscope. When he emerges into the clearing he

instantly clocks the beautiful Beechcraft exactly where he left

it, wings glinting with the light of distant stars. Not far away

the jacked-up, fat-wheeled Dodge Ram lurks next to the cam-

ouflaged hangar. The toothy front grill makes the truck look

like a shiny steel cougar ready to pounce.

“Roy!” Ricky bellows, cupping his hands to his mouth.

“Dug! Roydug! Roydug! Roydug!”

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Chris Jordan

Amused by putting their names together, the swamp-

cracker twins who have sworn him allegiance in exchange

for the new truck and whatever crumbs may dribble their way.

Roy is the brains of the family, meaning he doesn’t drool

overmuch. Whereas Dug, his very name apparently mis-

spelled by his illiterate, white-trash mammy, young Dug

seems to be missing about half his puzzle.

Ricky always deals with Roy, for obvious reasons, but this

time it’s Dug who comes lurching out of the truck, swollen

eyelids crunchy with sleep.

Upon seeing Ricky he stammers, “Um-um.Yeah hey what?”

Bare chested, bare-legged Ricky Lang coming out of the

dark, chanting his name, it’s like being awakened by a hard

slap in the face. An experience not entirely unknown to Dug,

whose late and unlamented pappy was notoriously ill-

tempered and free with his hands.

“Where’s Roy?” Ricky wants to know.

Dug is looking around, wondering how the man got here.

A little segment of his brain wondering if maybe the crazy

Indian really can fly without benefit of aircraft. Materializ-

ing like a ghost with Dug’s name in his mouth.

“Um-um,” says Dug.

“Um-um, where’s he at?” Ricky demands. Standing close

so the stammering white-bread can smell the feral stink of

him, the swamp and danger on his breath.

Dug is afraid of Ricky—any sane individual smaller than

King Kong would be afraid of Ricky Lang, who exudes a

kind of steroid strength from the top of his bowl-cut hairdo

down to his splayed feet—but Dug is even more afraid that

he’ll react the wrong way, ruin everything for Roy. Not

knowing what to do, fearing the wrong reaction, he’s reduced

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to stammering, making um-um noises while his brain sorts out

the options.

Strangely enough, Ricky seems to understand what’s

going on with Dug—the obvious strain of having to think—

and steps back, giving him room to work it out.

“Roy,” Dug finally says, savoring the name. “He gone to

check on the girl. I’m guardin’ the airplane.”

Giving it the swamp-cracker pronunciations, two words,

era plane.

“Left you the truck,” Ricky observes. “What’s he driving?”

Dug has to think about it, then carefully assemble the

words. “Four-wheeler. One in the shed?”

That sets Ricky back on his bare heels just a little, because

he has always intended the four-wheeler to be a present for

his children, eventually. Purchased on a whim months ago,

with nobody’s birthday pending anytime soon, he’d decided

to store it at the airfield until they were old enough to drive

the thing. Picturing Tyler gleeful as he guns the engine, spins

the fat wheels. Tyler screaming.

Ricky takes a deep breath, swallows his rage, saving it for

later.

“Took the wheeler, did he?” he says pleasantly, showing

his teeth.

Dug nods deliberately and with enthusiasm, as if grateful

for any question that doesn’t require a verbal response.

“Where’s that cell phone at, Dug? The one the girl had.

Did Roy leave it with you?”

Dug nods again. Two in a row.

“Give it over, I need to make a call,” says Ricky, holding

out his big fist, opening his blunt fingers.

Dug hurries to the truck, returns with the sporty little Razr

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cell phone, places it carefully into the palm of Ricky’s hand.

Takes a step back, waiting.

“Battery, Dug,” says Ricky, ever so softly. “I need the

battery, too.”

Back to the truck like a two-legged retriever. Actually

Ricky’s pleased that the twins remembered to remove the bat-

tery, as instructed. Ricky knows all about surveillance and tri-

angulation, and how an active cell phone can be a homing

device.

He assembles the phone, fires it up, waits until the signal

bars are glowing. Then thumbs the redial button, watches the

familiar number march across the little blue screen.

“Yo, Edwin,” Ricky says jovially, his free hand slipping

into his gym shorts, adjusting his genitals. “You still up.

Me again, yeah. What’s a matter, can’t sleep? You call the

cops yet? No? FBI? CIA, Wackenhut, Pizza Hut, whoever?

No? You swear? Oh that’s good, I believe you. You’re

pretty smart for a white dude. Yeah, I’m down with you,

bro. We can figure a way out of this, we put our brains

together and think real hard. Uh-huh, uh-huh. I know

you’re worried about your son. I know that. You should be

worried. If we can’t work this out, if you can’t help me,

I’ll be forced to cut off your boy’s ears and his nose and

his fingers and little white pecker, and then FedEx him to

locations around the world.”

The FedEx stuff is pure improvisation, something he heard

in a movie or on TV. Ricky has already decided that when

the time comes the body will go into the swamp, clean and

simple and forever. But who knows, FedEx might work for

the smaller appendages.

Ricky loves this part, deciding who lives, who dies, who

gets the power, who shrivels like an earthworm in the sun.

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“Calm down, Edwin,” he says. “Concentrate on figuring

out how to get me what I want. You’ve got twelve hours

before I start cutting.”

19. The Taste Of Dirty Pennies

Men, most of them, seem to think that when a woman cries

she’s signaling weakness, falling apart. But sometimes crying

is just what you do to relieve the tension. Guys scream or

sweat or kick the cat. We cry. There’s this old movie with

Holly Hunter, she’s the producer of a TV news show, and she

starts the day by sitting at her desk and crying her eyes out

for about thirty seconds. Then she’s good to go.

I’m having a Holly Hunter moment. The forbidden word

abducted
is spoken and I’m a fountain, sobbing so hard it

hurts in my ribs.

Give him credit, Randall Shane doesn’t try to comfort me

or offer a shoulder to cry on. He sits back and gives me time,

and when I’m finished blowing my nose he simply contin-

ues where he left off.

“It’s a theory and therefore by definition it could be wrong,”

he says. “But I think we have to proceed on the assumption

that Edwin Manning believes his son is in peril. Therefore we

have to assume your daughter is also in peril, until we hear

otherwise. Does this make sense to you, Mrs. Garner?”

I nod miserably. “Unfortunately, yes. I was thinking the

same thing myself. Guess I didn’t want to admit it.”

“Then we’re in agreement?”

“I guess,” I say. “Does that mean we go to the cops? Tell

them what we suspect?”

Shane shakes his head. “We’re not quite there. We need

to know why Manning hasn’t called in the Feds. Why he’s so

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Chris Jordan

terrified that he’s prowling his own yard in camouflage. Once

we’ve resolved that, once we have an indication that your

daughter is in danger, we’ll notify the local authorities and

they’ll contact the FBI. That’s how it’s done.”

“How do we find out? He won’t talk to us.”

In the dark his smile is tight, resolute. “I’ve got an idea,”

he says.

Second time around, getting inside is easy. Shane’s idea

is to push the button on the intercom and say, “Let us in, Mr.

Manning, or I’ll call my colleagues at the FBI. The assistant

director in charge of kidnapping is Monica Bevins and I have

her on speed dial. Count of three. One…two.”

And just like that, the gates slid open. As we roll up the

long, curving driveway, I ask Shane if he really has a Monica

Bevins on speed dial, and if she’s really an agent-in-charge.

“Yes to both,” he says. “And yes, I’m fully prepared to

make the call.”

“And they let you assist clients like me? The FBI?”

“Can’t stop me. I’m a civilian.”

“But you’ve got, like, all these connections to the agency,

right?”

“Some useful connections, yes.”

“And this is what you did before you retired, you found

missing children?”

His eyes find mine in the rearview mirror. He gives me an

odd look, like I’m a kid asking too many questions at the

wrong time. “No,” he says, “not exactly. I assisted with a

number of kidnap cases as an agent on general assignment.

At the time it wasn’t my specialty.”

At this point I’m too numb to be shocked by this revela-

tion. “No? What did you do?”

“Electronics, surveillance gear, mostly hardware stuff.

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Gear and gizmos. Later I helped develop a software program

for rapid fingerprint recognition.”

“You really were a computer geek?
That’s
what you did

in the FBI?”

“Pretty much,” he admits.

What was I thinking, that he’d shot John Dillinger and

smoked out terror cells? “So how’d you get into this line of

work?”

“Long story,” he says. “Maybe later.”

Secrets. Apparently Randall Shane has a few of his own.

We’ve arrived at what appears to be the main building, having

passed several low, modern outbuildings. Carriage house, guest

cottage, maintenance shed, all very Long Island estate. Lush,

illuminated landscaping that looks au naturel but isn’t, believe

me. It’s all very tastefully planned, very big money.

The main structure is an artful arrangement of steel beams