Trapped (34 page)

steel. Or poor Sisyphus, being made to push a giant rock up a

steep hill for all eternity, only to have it roll down, having to

start all over, shoving and pushing forever and ever.

She invented her own tormented hero. The great, tragic

and stunningly beautiful Chemo, trapped in her bed, held

down with tubes and bags of fluids, having to endure the

torments administered by the gods of Sloan-Kettering.

Striving to be good and brave and true so the miserable

disease would give up and leave her alone.

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Chemo the Brave, Chemo the Magnificent. Chemo who

fought death to a standstill and won back her life. Hadn’t

thought about her in a long time. No need. But now in the

muggy darkness of her little prison, Kelly summons her back.

Not to suffer tragically, but to fight and win.

First requirement, a weapon. Other than her hands, teeth

and fingernails, what is there? She numbers the objects in her

mind.

1. Plastic water jug.

2. Small plastic lantern.

3. Five-gallon bucket.

Three things, and none of them is exactly a loaded gun.

She decides to examine each object, with the aim of devising

a weapon. The water jug is smooth and flimsy. She rejects

it. The battery-filled lantern is fairly heavy, it feels sort of sub-

stantial, but the shape makes it awkward to throw. Leaving

the bucket. She loathes the bucket, the humiliation of having

to use it for a toilet. Could it become a weapon? Fling it hard

enough at her captor’s head, the next time the door opened,

maybe it would stun him, give her time to slip past him.

Gingerly touching the bucket, her hand encounters the

handle, reclined against the side. The handle is nothing more

than a curved piece of stiff metal rod, with ends that hook

into the side of the bucket. Exploring the handle inch by

inch, she discovers that the hooked end is sharp. Not razor

sharp by any means, but she can feel the edge.

Her hands shaking slightly with excitement, Kelly un-

hooks the handle. Straightening it as best she can, she begins

to rub the sharp end of the handle against the floor of her

prison. Steel against steel.

After a few minutes the metal rod warms in her hands. It

begins to have the feel of a weapon. Something sharp and

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strong. Something she can plunge into the heart of the next

man who comes through the door.

21. Strictly Stiltsville

The Glock is within reach, Shane decides. Ricky Lang

having nonchalantly tucked the weapon in the waistband of

his cargo pants. As if, the issue of releasing his captives

having been settled, there is no need for guns.

The only trouble, if Shane does manage to get his hands

on the Glock he will undoubtedly have to shoot the guy,

thereby complicating the task of recovering Kelly Garner.

Not that Shane is convinced Ricky Lang is telling the truth

about letting his captives go. Truth being a relative term to a

man who believes he can make himself invisible. Probably

thinks bullets won’t hurt him either, but Shane is pretty sure

a .45 caliber slug, discharged at close range, will kill him.

Rendering him useless in a search for the victims.

Shane decides to bide his time. Determine if Lang really

intends to lead him to the captives, then take whatever action

is necessary.

“You like boats?” Lang wants to know.

“Sure,” says Shane.

They’re detouring around the sapphire-blue pool, heading

for the seawall. Shane would dearly love to get out his cell

phone and make a few calls but he’s afraid of interrupting the

flow, the insane rhythm of the man with the bowl-cut hair. If

there had been any doubt as to his mental state, it was con-

firmed when Lang had ducked into what was obviously a

child’s bedroom and waved bye-bye to the empty space.

“My kids,” he’d said, black eyes shining with a ferocious,

mind-consuming love. “Alicia and Reya, those are the girls,

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aren’t they sweet? Troy, the little one, he’s my little boy. Go

on, kids, wave to the nice man!” He waits a beat, turns to

Shane and says, “Cute, huh?”

Shane had, of course, agreed.

At the seawall Rick Lang produces a small remote control

and sets about lowering the sleek red boat into the water. The

notion of fishing as a pleasant activity aside, Shane knows

very little about boats. This thing, long and narrow and

pointy, looks built for speed and nothing else.

“My special baby, a Y2K Superboat,” Lang explains as the

winches unwind. “Pure racing machine, custom-built in New

York. Turbocharged, seven hundred horse motor with a Bravo

One stern drive. Three stage hull. You want to know how fast

it goes? Hundred miles an hour, man. Get you to Bimini in

twenty minutes.”

“Very impressive.”

Lang’s finger comes off the remote and the winch stops,

causing the big boat to shudder in its cradle. “You messin’

with me, man?” he says, his eyes hardening.

Shane, not sure how to react to the sudden change in

mood, asks, “Why would I mess with you?”

Ricky Lang snorts, his neck swelling. “The way you said

‘very impressive.’Like you don’t believe me. Some crazy Indian

bragging on his stupid boat, is that what you think? Huh?”

“No, no,” says Shane, trying to assure him. “I mean it. I

love the boat. Very impressive.”

“So you know about go-fast boats?”

“Not a thing, no. Comes to boats, I’m dumb as a rock.”

Lang stares at him, then thumbs the remote, resumes

lowering the boat.

“This an A-class racer,” he explains, sounding like a man

grievously wounded by insult, struggling to be amenable.

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“Water gets a little rough, it goes faster. Get it balanced right,

there’s only about two square feet of hull in the water at any

one time. Air under the hull lifting like wings on a plane. Boat

rides on the prop, man. It flies, okay?”

“Sounds dangerous.”

Lang chuckles, a sound that, with his pumped-up build

and the Glock in his possession, is anything but reassuring.

“Oh man, this boat’ll kill you, you don’t look out.”

Lang leaps spryly into the cockpit, holds a hand out to help

him aboard.

Shane hesitates. “We’re going to get the captives?”

“Captives?” Lang says, sounding puzzled.

“Kelly Garner. Seth Manning.”

“Not captives, man. Guests.”

“Guests, yes. But they’re okay? They’re alive?”

Ricky Lang grins, showing his square white teeth. “They

be better when you come to the rescue, man.”

Biscayne Bay is the color of a mint-green milk shake,

little foamy whitecaps marching along in ragged forma-

tion, propelled by a hot, southerly breeze. Off in the dis-

tance, a land mass connected by a long sliver of causeway.

Must be Key Biscayne, Shane concludes. Beyond that,

South Beach is a smudge on the horizon. In the heat of the

afternoon, with sunlight exploding from every whitecap,

it could be a pastel mirage, hastily sketched. Closer to

hand are a number of smaller islands, some natural, others

created by developers, as well as navigational aids that

appear to be extruded upward from the shallow sea bottom.

As the throbbing beast of a boat glides through the intri-

cate channels, heading out into the bay, Ricky Lang smiles

and points out the sights, chatting amiably as he drives the

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big racing machine one-handed. Shane can’t make out a

word, and forms the impression that Lang knows this full

well. As if he’s performing a pantomime show, impersonat-

ing a friendly host. And yet the way he’s ever so casually

leaning on his seat, oriented toward his “guest,” would make

it difficult if not impossible for Shane to grapple successfully

for the gun.

The posture is hardly an accident. Ricky Lang may or may

not be delusional, but he’s what the FBI assault teams would

call “situationally aware.” Armed, dangerous and playing a

part. Or maybe lost in his role, hard to say.

At the end of the channel Lang slots the shifting lever to

neutral, lowers the throbbing engine to idle, and raises his

voice to make himself heard.

“So you up for a ride, man?”

“Where we going?” Shane wants to know.

“Check out my little guesthouse, what you think? You

want to be a hero or what?”

Shane considers the man, the handsome eagle-beak of

a nose, the keenly intelligent eyes. How does it reconcile

with the Moe Howard hairstyle, the swaggering, almost

theatrical way he presents himself? What’s the message

here? Is he daring the world not to take him seriously?

Does he revel in his clownish behavior, using it as a dis-

guise? Or are these all symptoms of a deteriorating men-

tal condition?

Randall Shane, never a profiler and always distrustful of

snap psychological assessments, decides he has no clue as

to what motivates Ricky Lang. “I just want to find the girl,”

he says truthfully. “And the boy, too, if he’s still alive.”

Ricky laughs. “What are you so worried about?”

“Boats make me nervous.”

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“Yeah? You don’t look nervous, man. You look more like

you’re planning to jump me, hijack my ride.”

Shane manages to look astonished. “Why would I do that?

I want to find the girl.”

“Yeah, but when I take you there, then you’ll jump me,

right? Shoot me, arrest me, whatever.”

Shane shakes his head. “Not me. I’m no longer a law en-

forcement officer.”

“Somebody else then. Snipers. A SWAT team. Shoot me

in the back, like at Wounded Knee.”

“Doesn’t have to be that way, Mr. Lang. Take me to the

girl, you’re free to go. No one will press charges. It was a

simple misunderstanding.”

“You serious? No charges?”

“I swear.”

“Like it never happened?”

“Absolutely.”

Lang chuckles, shakes his head. “Man, you’re a good liar,

you know that?”

“Seriously, if the girl is unharmed we can work some-

thing out.”

Lang grins, seriously amused. “She’s okay, man. Hang on,

I’ll show you.”

He jams the throttle down, pinning Shane to his seat.

For the next two minutes all he can do is hang on for dear

life because the boat, as Lang promised, is pretty much

airborne. Scudding over the swells, barely making contact

with the water as it accelerates. The pitch of the huge scream-

ing engine is a mere decibel below total disintegration. To

Shane the sensation is akin to falling down an elevator shaft,

except death by elevator would be over by now and at ninety

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miles an hour across open water, two minutes is a very long

chunk of eternity.

With the boat careening around like an Exocet missile, vis-

ibility is pretty much nil. Plumes of white spray explode

over the bow, only to be crushed back into the sea by the

headlong velocity of the boat.

At the last possible minute Shane sees a structure loom-

ing. Scabby concrete pilings holding up what looks like a

giant shoe box. They’re going to hit it head-on, at nearly a

hundred miles an hour, with a thousand pounds of super-

charged engine, and who knows how much fuel right under

his seat.

No time.
That’s the profound thought he has at the very

moment of his death.

No time.

Then Ricky Lang yanks the throttles back, killing the

motor if not all of the momentum. Shane is thrown forward,

whacking his head on the padded dashboard, which starts his

nose bleeding in a fresh spurt, and he ends up flat on his back

in the bottom of the cockpit confused and dazed.

After a moment, the shoe box resolves into a boarded-up

wreck of a house on stilts, way out in the bay. Nothing but

blue sky and sunshine and a row of insolent-looking seagulls

perched on a railing, staring down at the intruders.

Ricky Lang then looms over him, offering a hand.

“We’re here, man. Stiltsville, or what’s left of it.”

Not a bad spot, Shane is thinking, to stash a captive or two.

22. Small Miracles

Lang insists that Shane disembark by going over the side

of the boat.

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Chris Jordan

“You want me to dent this fine machine by tying up to the

pilings in this chop? No way, man. You want to be a hero,

you can jump the last couple of yards. You gotta ask yourself,

What Would Superman Do?”

“It looks abandoned,” Shane says, looking up at the

boarded-up shack.

Rick Lang shrugs. “That’s because it is abandoned. Park

took over, kicked the people out. Back in the day, this is where

they gambled and whored. Put a boat aground on a sandbar two

miles from shore and open for business, the law couldn’t touch

you. Water’s only three feet deep, you could get out and walk.”

Shane, pretending to tend to his smashed-up nose, calcu-