Silencer (28 page)

Thorn worked his jaws, and tried to swallow. Lodged in the back of his throat was a chunk of cinder. He tried to coax some spit into his mouth, but got nothing. He tried chewing on the edge of his hard tongue, and got the same result. He found himself leaning forward to better see the water dribbling.

He was losing it all right. That was clear. His body was in revolt, cells garbling their messages to one another. He'd begun to question his reflexes and his judgment.

With the back of his arm he mashed his raw lips, trying again to manufacture juice inside his mouth. It didn't work. Nothing was going to work but the real stuff.

He jumped down from the tire and mapped his route. Only a madman would barge in the front. Then again it had a certain fittingness. One madman calling on another.

Running in a stoop, he stayed below the level of the windows and stole close to the cabin wall. He worked his way forward to the porch.

He mounted the three wooden steps, then held back in the shadows
and tilted his head around the window frame to scout the interior of the cabin. Table lights blazing. Overhead lights on, ceiling fan whirling at full speed. Papers tacked to the walls fluttered in its breeze. On the mantel were a dozen fat red candles of different heights, each with a trembling flame.

Through the kitchen entryway, Thorn could see the running faucet.

Even in his untrustworthy state of mind, he knew it was a trap. Not that it mattered. He was going in. He was going through that door.

Out in the yard the iPod finished its playlist and ceased. After a stretch of pineland silence, there came the slow whoots of a great horned owl reclaiming its share of the night. From some nearby pond or marsh a collection of competing frogs tuned up their orchestra. The marble-clicking-against-marble call of the cricket frogs and the
cheep-cheep
reply of oak toads and dozens of tiny cricket frogs bleating like a lost herd of sheep.

It was an endless war out there in the scrub, every hour of every day. Who would prevail, who would disappear. Who could outsing, outfox, outrun the other.

He drew the pistol from his pocket. Thorn held the handgun for a moment and tried to silence the clamor in his chest. Everything he was doing was out of sync, too fast or slow, the disjointed boogie-woogie of a drunk.

He wrapped his hand around the pistol grip and extended the weapon into a slant of light to see exactly how bad his shakes had gotten. The harder he clenched, the more the pistol quivered.

With his left hand he reached for the knob and saw that hand was trembling, too. He gripped the knob, turned it, shoved the door open, and swung it aside, pressing his back against the exterior wall. Jonah did not spray automatic fire through the wood or at the open doorway. And he didn't shriek and come swinging down from the rafters with knives in both hands and a knife between his teeth.

In the darkness behind him the owls and frogs continued to compete
with one another. The only sound inside the cabin was the creaky whirr of the fan.

 

“People think I got it easy cashing in on my rep,” Antwan said. “Making deals, being the front man for this and that. A guy looks at me and thinks I'm cruising down easy street. But let me tell you, brown sugar, it's not like people think. It's hard work being in the limelight.”

“I feel your pain.”

Sugarman looked across the room at the shattered window. The shotgun's blast pattern had chewed a swatch out of the rock wall. Crime-scene stickers were affixed to the leather couch beside two puncture wounds. There were animal heads on the wall: an antelope of some kind, a bison, a wild boar with yellowed tusks.

He was sitting in a wingback chair beside the couch. He believed his nose was broken, but he hadn't reached up to check because he didn't want to give Antwan the satisfaction.

So far Antwan had punched him three times. Bruised his jaw, loosened a canine. Just recreational hitting, establishing the pecking order. Sugarman hadn't fought back. Not yet. Playing possum, at least that's what he was telling himself. But he wasn't sure he could tolerate much more. Might have to defend the next strike, see what this bully knew about hand-to-hand.

As long as Rusty was okay, there was no urgency. He could hear her talking in a normal voice in the dining room behind them. Couldn't make out everything, but got a word here and there. Telling Browning Hammond about the structure of the business arrangement. How it happened, the history of it, Florida Forever. Like she could reason with him, like this wasn't all going terribly wrong. Hammond wasn't saying much. Just a “goddamn” here and there.

Antwan pulled out his BlackBerry for the fourth time, thumb-typed a message. Waited, didn't get the reply he wanted, and cursed. He slid the device into his pocket and turned to Sugarman again, his
big lips curling into a smile, walking over to the wingback like it was time again for another right jab. Then he stopped short and gave Sugar a curious grin.

“I'm trying to figure out which part of you is white. Old man, or old lady. I'd lay odds you had one of them hippie-chick moms. Lived in a commune, milked her herd of goats, grew big old marijuana plants. Along comes a big black dude with nasty manners and she turns all squishy inside. I bet that's your story. You're the love child of a Zulu warrior and a bimbo from Ohio.”

“Mullaney knows we're here.”

“Aw, man, is that all you got to scare me with?” Antwan said. “Chief of police of Miami? Shit, that's lame. First off, that man's got himself an alcohol problem of great magnitude. Second thing, his plate is full to overflowing—he don't care about your sorry ass. People disappear every day. Drive off, never heard of again, vaporize off the grid somewhere. Happens more than a man would think.”

“He's an old friend.”

“Well, okay, bring it, baby. Let him send a search crew up here, have a look around, fine-tooth-comb the whole ranch. Nobody's gonna discover no trace of brown sugar or his twiggy. No, sir, Officer, never seen such a person. No, sir. No, sir.”

“They'll come looking. It won't be that easy.”

Antwan bent in close to Sugar and said, “I think you're still way too pretty.”

He punched him square with a left hand. Sugarman's head thumped against the chair. He swallowed the blood, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Lips numb, cheeks swelling.

“Look, here's how it is. You been messing in the man's business. He don't like that. Neither do I, cause his business is comingled with mine.”

“I see that.”

“I don't know what you are, brown sugar, but you ain't no businessman. 'Cause if you were, you'd see how wrong you been, going
behind people's backs, trying to take what's theirs without proper remuneration. Am I talking so you understand?”

“Why was Earl in such a hurry to part with his land?”

Antwan took a half step back from the chair and squinted at Sugarman.

“You are one well-informed negro, I'll give you that much. But the thing is, every time you come out with shit like that, you ain't doing nothing but taking another shovelful of dirt out of your own grave.”

In the other room Rusty's voice was growing stern. Giving Browning Hammond a lecture in ethics. As a tactic, Sugarman had always liked that approach. Even when you were a hostage, speaking the truth had a way of knocking off balance morally challenged assholes like Antwan Shelton and Browning Hammond.

“Those two guys that kidnapped Thorn, the little one dressed like a derelict and his big preppie buddy, you sent them, didn't you?”

Antwan's grin lost some of its sizzle.

“What did they do with him, Antwan? Where's my friend?”

Antwan dabbed a finger into the corner of his eye and flicked the crumb away.

“I'd just be guessing,” he said. “But if I had to put cash money on it, I'd say your buddy Thorn put on his weight belt and went scuba diving without his tank.”

 

 

THORN STEPPED INSIDE, FANNED THE
Glock around the empty room.

He crossed the bare wood floor, heading behind the couch toward the kitchen. To his right down a hallway several doors were shut. Maybe Jonah was down there catching some Z's. Maybe he'd grown weary of his own pathetic future and exploded his skull with a bullet. Or perhaps he was absorbed in some old cable TV show. A guy who gives away a million dollars each week, then sits back in his easy chair and watches the fun.

The kitchen reeked of rancid grease and rotting vegetables and damp towels that had been moldering for months. The grout was green with mildew. Smears of butter and jelly and ketchup and black grime marked the countertops. Empty tins of sardines spilled over the brim of the garbage can. These boys had the housekeeping skills of a drove of feral hogs.

Thorn aimed the pistol at the plates and clutter of frying pans and pots. He aimed at the faucet and the trickle of water. He didn't rush to drink. He exercised restraint because he needed to show himself he was in control. He swung his aim to the door behind him, expecting
Jonah to burst around the edge in his weasel grin and grubby clothes.

The pistol barrel wavered before him as if he were shooing away a bug.

The door was empty. In the living room the fan whirred. The drawings tacked to the walls fluttered and rattled. Drawings in Magic Marker and crayon of loony faces and dismembered bodies. Pencil sketches of naked women and couples having Kama Sutra sex. A posterboard decorated with dozens of skulls and a single clown's face. Scrawlings of the doomed and damned.

Thorn lowered the pistol. He turned and went to the sink, bent his head down and slurped. His throat tightened but he fought off the gag. He straightened and swung back to the doorway. Still empty.

From the open window Thorn heard the peeping of frogs in the marsh. Amazing creatures. With no tusks or venom, speed or strength, it was a miracle they survived the constant combat out on the pineland, where every living thing was busy finding any slim advantage. So slow and vulnerable, they puffed themselves up and made their bold squeals to bluff intruders. Managing to survive only with their voices and their guile.

He went back to the water, back to swallowing. A sip and another sip. Taking it slow because that was the advice he'd learned in childhood. The medical folklore of growing up. Don't drink too fast when you're parched. Overwhelming the shriveled stomach could be as dangerous as the dehydration. Old lessons from Kate Truman, the woman he'd called Mother, whose wedding ring had saved his life today, whose lessons were always practical and clear. Never leave dirty dishes overnight because it's harder to clean them in the morning. Don't drink too fast when you're dying of thirst. And always, always turn around and check the empty doorway to see if the killer has appeared.

This time he had.

Jonah's smirky grin had been replaced by a vague stare. He had
freshened up. Shaved his head, showered away the hog blood, though he'd missed a red smear on his temple. He looked shrunken inside his brother's snappy blue business shirt. It draped over his bony shoulders like a toga on a child. His eyes twitched around the room and his jaw moved as if he were gnawing on unspoken words. He stood as stiff and uncertain as an understudy pushed onto the stage with insufficient training.

In his hand, however, was one hell of a prop, a Mac-10 with an extended clip.

“You came,” Jonah said. “I thought you might.”

“I wouldn't miss it for anything.”

“Put the pistol on the counter.”

Thorn did as he was told. Downshifting into slow motion, he bent back to the water and took another sip and another. It was how you behaved when you were swimming in the ocean and confronted by a shark. You relaxed, went on with your business, no splashing, no sudden moves, nothing that might provoke them. If they wanted you, they could have you—not much you could do to fix that beyond staying cool.

Thorn ran the water over his hands and washed away the piss stink and the dirt. He ran some more water over them and scrubbed them hard. He cupped some water into his hands and bathed his face. Took a last deep drink before turning to face Jonah.

He'd seen Mac-10's before. They were the weapon of choice for South Florida's cocaine cowboys two decades back and were still popular with certain sweethearts who had the burning urge to discharge a thousand rounds a minute.

Thorn cut a look to his Glock, measuring the distance. A couple of seconds to grab, aim, and fire. Enough time for Jonah to sink fifty rounds in his chest.

“You realize Moses gave his life for yours,” Thorn said.

“Huh?”

“He was dying, but he screamed that warning to you. Lying there in agony, but that was the only thing on his mind, saving your ass.”

Jonah blinked and blinked again as though struggling to recall his reason for being there. Moses had been his meat and muscle and his backbone. Alone, the kid was floundering.

Thorn kept his voice quiet and slow as if speaking into the dreams of another.

“Since I saw you last, I figured out what you wanted to know. The reason you were hired to kill me.”

Jonah shifted the Mac-10 in his arms, his finger stroking the trigger.

“You wanted to cut yourself in on the action, right? That was your plan?”

Jonah licked his lips. His eyes faded and brightened then faded again. He was there, not there, then there again as though a searchlight was making slow revolutions inside his skull.

“Look, I'm going to put my hand in my pocket and show you something.”

“I'll spatter you on the wall.”

“It's what you and Moses wanted to know. I solved it for you.”

Slowly Thorn slipped his hand into his pocket, eyes on Jonah's eyes, while Jonah tightened his grip on the Mac.

He dug out the ancient mollusk, and held it on his flat palm.

“It's called a rudist,” Thorn said. “It's a fossil.”