Silencer (12 page)

If it was the pistol from last night, Thorn didn't have many choices. Throw rocks. Flatten himself against a wall. Plead for mercy.

“Okay, so what I'm going to do, Mr. Thorn, I'm going to speak a person's name and you're going to tell me the first thing pops in your head. Like a game show, you know,
Name That Tune
. You give me the right answer, I'll talk to the chef. See what he's got on special today.”

Thorn ached in so many places it was hard to know what was hangover, what came from the fall. He had to give the alcohol some credit for no broken bones, the softening effect of being massively drunk at the moment of impact. A rag doll thumping against the thick layer of sand on the floor of the pit.

Several ribs felt bruised, and his butt and lower back were throbbing as though he'd spent the evening trying to tame a mechanical bull. But all in all it had been a miraculous landing. Nothing broken, nothing sprained. A few lumps and scrapes, some deep-tissue bruising, but not even a bad cut.

“So here we go, Thorn. Ready for round one?”

“I'm listening.”

“You and the governor, Herbert Sanchez, you two been chummy lately?”

“The governor?”

“That's right. Governor of Florida. The entire state.”

“Guy who did that publicity stunt with workdays? News cameras follow him around while he pretends to be a mailman, cab driver, pizza-delivery boy.”

“That was about ten governors ago.”

“I always liked that governor. Now, there was a classy guy.”

“This the way it's going to be with you? Jokes? Bullshit. 'Cause if it is, 'cause if you keep this up, don't start playing straight, I'm going to nail this trapdoor shut and the whale's going to swim out to sea with you in its belly. This whale's going to be your coffin, cute guy.”

“I don't know Sanchez. You got any other names?”

“How about Shelton? Antwan Shelton, black dude.”

“Football player. One-Ton Antwan.”

“There you go. See how easy this is. So what you and Antwan been up to?”

“Don't know him. Saw him on TV in a bar once. That's it. Dolphins running back a few years ago. Got injured, retired.”

“That's all you know about him, what you saw in a bar once?”

“Running back, a real bruiser. One-Ton Antwan. I remembered his nickname. I should get extra credit for that.”

Jonah shifted his position, moving away from the sun. The shiny object in his hand wasn't a pistol. It was oblong, about the size of a cell phone. Thorn let himself take a breath, relax a notch.

“Okay, next name on the list,” Jonah said. “Browning Hammond.”

“Hammond?” Thorn said too quickly and with too much weight.

An image formed in his mind: that butterfly in Argentina or wherever the hell it was, fluttering its wings, sending a wisp of air off into the atmosphere, then that puff travels down a long line of unpredictable causes and effects, and bingo, a category 5 hurricane swirls to life. Chaos theory—every part of the universe connected by a web of fragile pulses no one could predict. Earl Hammond. Coquina Ranch. Florida Forever. The land swap. Thorn tries to do a good deed, and a few flutters of a butterfly wing later, he lands on his butt twenty feet down a sinkhole. Detained by the karma police.

“Okay, good,” Jonah said. “That name rings a bell. We're moving ahead.”

Thorn debated it quickly and decided. Better to engage, take the risk, see what he could extract from the shit-eater. Not that Thorn was any master manipulator. But Jonah didn't strike him as the sharpest cheddar in the fridge.

Then there was Rusty. Her name was on the legal documents alongside his own, making her a player in this transaction, too. More reason to stay engaged. As long as Thorn was the target, Rusty was safe.

“Hammond,” Thorn said. “Hammond's a pretty common name.”

“Browning Hammond isn't.”

Thorn's right hand closed around a stone. Then again, maybe he should take a shot at the guy, a fastball to the forehead. If he was lucky, he might crack his skull, bring the slinky son of a bitch tumbling into the hole. A tempting thought.

“Okay,” Jonah said. “How about Earl Hammond? Earl Hammond
Jr. You got any connections with him? Business, personal, professional, or otherwise.”

“I do,” Thorn said.

The smirk drained from Jonah's face.

“Don't be fucking with me.”

“I wouldn't think of fucking with you. Not for all the condoms in the world.”

“Talk to me, funny man. What kind of business you and Earl up to?”

“You said something about food and drink.”

The angle was too awkward for a fastball into Jonah's strike zone. And truth was, Thorn wasn't all that confident of his aim. Oh, he'd skipped his share of rocks across the flat waters of Key Largo. He still had good snap in his arm. But the risk-reward calculation wasn't good. If he missed, Jonah would be on heightened alert thereafter. If he injured him but didn't bring him down into the pit, the guy would surely retaliate. He let the rock roll from his hand.

“See how much fun this is?” Jonah said. “Cooperation is a beautiful thing. So I'm asking you again, dude. What kind of deal you got going with Earl Hammond?”

“You know Earl?” Thorn said.

“Everyone knows Earl.”

“You work for him? He your boss? You going behind his back? Messing in his business.”

“I'm running this show, meat puppet. Don't get fancy with me.”

“Just curious. I'm a curious fellow, that's all.”

“Answer the question. What kind of business you doing with Earl?”

“It's complicated. Lots of lawyers, all that double-talk, you know.”

“What kind of deal?”

“Real estate,” Thorn said.

“Yeah? You buying or selling?”

“Neither,” Thorn said. “I'm partnering with him.”

“You and Earl are partners?”

“On this one deal, yeah.”

Jonah laughed.

“Well, I think your venture might've got dissolved last night.”

“Why's that?”

“Old Earl won't be lording it over anybody ever again. Snooty bastard's gone off to herd cattle on the big ranch in the sky.”

Thorn was silent. Earl Hammond dead. Thorn in a pit. His fogged brain was clearing fast. The butterfly had done its work. News of the Florida Forever deal had leaked, and somebody didn't want Coquina Ranch donated to the public domain. Had to be that. Had to be.

“So tell me, how was that going to work, you and Earl partnering up?”

“We had a deal, Jonah. I give you something, you give something back.”

“Whoa, there, beach boy.” Jonah chuckled. “In case you didn't notice, you're the one wallowing in whale guts. So here's how it works. You give, I take. That simple. Only reason you're alive is because of me. You were going down, hombre. You were supposed to be whacked last night. But I gave your ass a reprieve. So you owe me. Got it? You owe me big time.”

“Why keep me alive?”

“I'm asking the questions, humpback.”

“ 'Cause you're sniffing around,” Thorn said. “You're trying to find an angle.”

Jonah faltered for a second, which wasn't proof of anything. But close.

“You a college boy, Thorn?”

“A dropout.”

“Then don't try to outfox me, man. 'Cause I got the degree, bachelor of fucking arts, man. I stacked the whole four years, major university, magnum cum rah-rah. I'm a certified smart guy.”

“Impressive,” Thorn said.

“So spare me the bullshit.”

“Consider it done. Don't insult your family and zero bullshit from now on.”

Jonah rubbed his hand back and forth across the stubble of his shaved head, and then rubbed it some more as if trying to sand his palm smooth. Or maybe keep the blood flowing to his meager mind.

“What kind of deal were you and Earl working on? No more cute stuff.”

“Who in the world would want me dead? I'm such a congenial fellow.”

Jonah's lips pressed flat as if he was fighting off some impulsive reply.

“It was one of those guys, wasn't it? Shelton, the governor, Browning Hammond? One of them is your boss. That's who put a hit on me. But you and your brother decided to weasel into their business instead.”

“I'm not the guy you want to piss off, Thorn.”

“Hey, where am I anyway? Is this Coquina Ranch? You got wildebeests running around here? Bison, wild boars?”

Jonah took a step back from the opening.

“You know about this place, do you?”

“Just a guess.”

“As a matter of fact, yeah, you're inside the Coquina hunting preserve, my man. With the wildebeests and the axis deer and the buffalo and all that shit. That's exactly where you are. Behind a fifteen-foot fence of razor wire. So you can forget about escaping. You're here for good till I'm done with you.”

“What're you doing here? You one of the zookeepers?”

“I'm running this interrogation. Get that straight, pud whacker.”

“I'm done,” Thorn said. “Tell the chef he can take the day off.”

Jonah's shit-eating grin resurfaced. It must have been his default look.

“All right, fine. Twist yourself into a lotus position, meditate your ass off. I'll be back when I'm back. Ciao, baby.”

The lid slammed shut and Thorn was again in twilight.

He leaned against the wall. Running it through, trying to unsnarl the tangle. Maybe he
was
in a fugue state. His mind still sluggish with booze. Add dehydration, throw in the bone-rattling crash into the pit. Blend at full speed and what you got was froth. Thorn, the useless head on a beer.

The trapdoor swung open again and sunlight flooded the sinkhole.

“I forgot something, party dude.”

Jonah was holding up the silver object.

“Don't want you to expire before you spill your guts.”

He tossed it into the pit, and Thorn fielded it with his left hand.

A small tin of skinless, boneless sardines.

“Whale food, baby. Heavy-duty protein, high in omega-3s. Think of it as your reward for being such a good little Eagle Scout. There's more where that came from, if you behave.”

He slammed the trapdoor shut and bolted it.

Thorn sat in the murky light with the can of sardines in his hand. He waited a full minute before he peeled open the can, gave it a cautious sniff, then tipped it to his mouth and slurped down the contents.

He sat for a moment savoring the oily warmth spreading into his belly, until finally the saltiness registered. Not good. The alcohol, the sweat drenching his clothes, his scratchy throat, tongue parched. Now his lips were puckering from the sodium. Category 5 dehydration.

Thorn scooted back to the narrow shaft in the floor and began to dig, combing back the layer of marl and granulated limestone, pebbles and the pulverized remains of ancient seashells.

When he'd made a bowl around the mouth of the cleft, he snaked his arm into the hole again, pressing his armpit hard against the depression. Maybe he'd gained an inch, but it was only enough to tickle his fingertips across the cool surface.

He wriggled his arm free and sat up, sucked the dew off his fingers.

He tried to focus, tried to reduce this to simple geometry. Water so close. Tantalizingly near. Just a few inches beyond arm's length. There
was a way to get at it. There had to be. Before he tried to scale those sheer walls, he had to have water. He had to. Take it one step at a time. Water, then escape.

Then he heard the sound. Thinking at first it was the wild skid and thud of his heart echoing in his ears. But as it rose in volume he recognized the familiar racket, the whump-whump-whump of a helicopter's rotor blades.

He peered up at the slits of sunlight showing through the planks above him and caught a flash of the chopper's passing. He had a spike of hope, then a slow deflation.

No one was coming for him. No one was even looking. He'd left a note for the only ones who might track him down. Written it word for word as dictated. Idiot drunk. He'd not even had the cunning to intentionally misspell a word, or leave some other signal the note was a lie.

“I just need some time alone to think.”

Well, by God, he was going to have that. A whole lot of that.

He listened to the chopper fade. He pressed his back against the pitted walls and listened until it was gone and the only noise that remained was the cawing of a gang of crows who in their dim-witted arrogance must have believed they'd scared the giant bird away.

 

 

INSIDE THE COQUINA RANCH BUSINESS
offices, Claire Hammond heard the roar of another helicopter. That made three. Two had arrived earlier from TV stations in Miami, then another came, black and bulky like a military gunship. While she was outside taking a break between interrogations, she'd watched the big chopper tip from side to side, warning the news guys off.

Even the Hammonds' air space was no longer their own.

Her third grilling was about to begin. This time the tape recorder was held by a woman.

She was younger than her male counterparts, hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, white polo shirt. Eyes that gave nothing away. Broad forehead, pointy chin, a triangular face. She introduced herself. Anne Donaldson. FDLE. Stiff manner, strictly professional, disinterested. She asked Claire to sit, asked her if she wanted a lawyer, which she declined, then asked her to begin at the beginning, go through it, leave nothing out. Same as the others had.

She retold the story. Still numb, out of body, suspended up there with the helicopters looking down from a great height at the whirlwind she'd created. Claire Hammond, killer. Claire Hammond, who
failed to act in time. Who caused the death of a man she revered and another who was her friend.

Okay, so she'd been in the barn. She'd heard the bugs go quiet. She went outside and stared at the lodge. It seemed strangely still. She walked over. But before she went inside, she decided she was spooked over nothing and started back to the barn. That's when she bumped into something on the path and stooped down to investigate. It was a dead man. An FDLE agent she'd met earlier in the day.