Текст книги "Lost"

Автор книги: Chris Jordan

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but who would she call? His family? Not an option. The cops? Ricky would kill her, really and truly kill her to death.

Truth is, Myla has no ideas, no options, other than to wait for whatever happens next.

Last thing she expects is a gentle knock on the cabana’s flimsy door. “Myla? Time for breakfast, honey.”

The door opens and there’s Ricky, showered and wearing a change of clothes. The tight black Calvin Klein muscle shirt she likes, the one that shows off his amazing pecs. Loose khaki cargo pants cinched with a leather belt at his narrow waist, bare feet with his brown toes splayed. What a guy. His eyes are deep, dark and haunted, but he looks so powerful, her own personal Incredible Hulk. Like he’s ready, willing, and able to leap into the air and fly to the ends of the earth, if that’s what it takes to make things right.

At the moment, making things right means breakfast.

“Scrambled eggs and toast,” he says, smiling and showing his strong white teeth.

Myla isn’t sure if he wants her to prepare the food or if he’s already made it just for her. Not that it matters. Either way is okay because it means they’ll be together.

She takes his arm, tracing her fingertips over his taut bicep. “Did you sleep okay, baby?” she wants to know.

Stuck in rush-hour gridlock, Shane blames it on sleep. If he wasn’t still groggy from his unplanned nap, no way would his client have managed to slip out of the vehicle before he stopped her. Instead he sits here like a goof, watching in astonishment as Jane Garner flips the bird to at least three honking drivers, then strides up the sidewalk with a purpose. He powers down the window so he can see better. She’s moving fast, dodging pedestrians. Medium height but she’s got long legs when she wants to. Great legs, come to think, and a nice look in those trim linen slacks. A little rumpled for having nodded off in a chair, but on her, rumpled looks … sexy.

He puts on the brakes, the mental brakes that stop this kind of salacious thinking. Reminds himself that Mrs. Garner is a client, experiencing tremendous stress and anxiety over a missing child. No matter how attractive, she’s vulnerable and therefore off-limits.

Don’t go there, don’t even think about it.

Having taken an icy shower, mentally, he concentrates on keeping her in view. Not easy because at this time of day, in this part of the city, the sidewalks are loaded. Folks on their way to work, or out to the shops, or intent on grabbing a flaky, guava-filled pastelito. A strolling mix of business suits and guayaberras, because it’s one those high-traffic areas where everything comes together, the various ethnicities and business interests, from international banking to hand-rolled cigars, from hole-in-the-wall con leche stands to bright new Starbucks. Old men play dominoes at social clubs while their children congregate in Wi-Fi cafés. Past, present and future, all sharing the same space, feeding off the same energy.

In other circumstances it might be fun to explore the neighborhood. Grab a stool somewhere and watch the world go by. But given the circumstances, the doomsday clock counting down on the missing girl, all he wants is Mrs. Garner back in the vehicle where he can keep her safe.

“Espresso, señor?”

Smiling mischievously as she hands him a little paper cup through the open window. And then, her timing immaculate, slipping into the passenger side just as the traffic starts moving. Knocking back her own shot of black, heavily sugared Cuban coffee, she holds up the empty cup and says, “These are like those hospital cups, where they put your medication. Or those shots of vodka Jell-O at the bars? Do they still do that at the bars, serve shots of vodka Jell-O from trays? I haven’t been for ages. And by the way, confirmation on Manning being in the Hummer. He’s on the phone, very intent. Maybe he’s talking to the kidnapper? Is that possible?”

Words coming out of her in a rush, all the pent-up anxiety and excitement. Her green eyes gleaming with hope. Shane can’t bring himself to rain on her parade, forces himself to say that yes, there’s every possibility Edwin Manning is about to make a payoff.

Jane Garner listens politely and then sighs. “You’re just being nice,” she decides. “You don’t really believe this will work out.”

“Short-term, we’ll see. Maybe this is something, maybe it isn’t. But long-term, I’m a believer. Keep working the angles, we’ll find a way in. We’ll get your daughter back.”

“Coffee okay?”

“Coffee is great. Amazing how much caffeine they pack into that little cup.”

Staring straight ahead as they pick up speed, she asks, very carefully, “Ever had one of these go bad?”

Shane doesn’t know what to say, but the lady obviously expects a truthful answer. “It happens,” he admits. “Depends on the circumstances.”

“Like what sort of circumstances?” she wants to know.

“Worst-case scenario is a psychotic pedophile who preys on young children.”

“A monster.”

“Yes.”

“Use the kid and throw it away.”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Garner, Jane, keeps her silence for the length of a city block. “So what’s the best-case scenario? Is there one?”

Shane touches the brakes. Both hands on the wheel, ten and two, as cautious at twenty miles per hour as he is at one hundred. “Best case is the kid ran away and I find him or her. Which has happened. Next best case is what we’ve got—an apparent abduction for extortion, payoff, or some other business purpose. Which is actually quite rare in this country, thank God. The money scenario has a rational component, rather than a psychosexual component.”

“So in a way this is good?”

“In a way. Better if it never happened at all.”

“Turn signal,” she announces.

Shane sees it, too. The blinkers indicate the target vehicle is changing lanes, headed for an exit.

“Expressway,” he says, following, eyes picking up the signs. “Wherever they’re headed, it’s not the International House of Pancakes.”

15. Scream Like A Girl

Forty-five minutes later we’re circling the enormous parking lot at Nakosha Nation Casinos & Resort. Or rather the access road that feeds all four satellite parking lots. Acres of blacktop under the brutal sun, more or less surrounding the new casino complex, which includes a shimmering, palm-green hotel tower that would not be out of place in Las Vegas. Situated not far from the Everglades, on tribal land. I know this because the last three miles has been punctuated by various signs reminding us that we’ve entered a sovereign nation, and therefore must abide by the laws and regulations of the Nakosha Tribal Council.

What those laws are, and how they might be different from the laws of the United States, is not spelled out. Not enough room on the signs, apparently.

“I think mostly it means gambling is legal here,” Shane opines when prompted. “Plus no tax on tobacco products.”

We’re circling the parking lots—hiding, really—because we don’t want Edwin Manning and his goons to spot us as they slot the Hummer and saunter into the casino, and because, frankly, Randall Shane isn’t sure what to do next.

“If they’re making a payoff, I don’t want to spook the deal,” he says, sounding sick with worry. “Manning knows what I look like. So does his chief of security.”

“You think? Six-foot-five white dude made them pee their pants with fear, you think they’d remember?”

“Sometimes being tall has disadvantages,” he admits.

“Get me near the entrance.”

“They know what you look like, too,” he protests.

“Not with your hat and my dark glasses. I already proved that, okay?”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“I very much doubt they’d be able to pick me out of a crowd. Not to be a noodge, but their attention was focused on you. I can blend, you can’t.”

“It could be dangerous,” he reminds me.

“Dangerous is whatever happened to Kelly. They get scary, I’ll scream like a girl.”

The first thing I notice, aside from the way brash daylight transitions into soft, lingering twilight inside the casino complex, is the gentle ringing of bells. A kind of musical background noise that reminds me of money. Not cash registers ringing, but the silvery chime of heavy coins colliding. A peaceful, hopeful, never-ending song that says you’re a winner, be happy.

It is, of course, the gaming machines. They all chime. Hundreds of one-armed bandits with lights flashing like diamonds, and soft leather seats for your tired tush. Sit down, my friend, the whole look and feel of the place says. Take a load off and fill your pockets with gold. Very few coins are actually falling, mostly it’s plastic cards you put in the slot, with your loses deducted by magnetic strip, like a debit card. All of which has been described and explained to me by Fern, who claims never to have lost at a casino, but seeing it with my own eyes is something of a revelation.

I’m on a mission here, looking for Edwin Manning and his cronies, and yet the whole machinery of the place calls to me. Demonstrating how powerful the urge to play, to take a chance, to be one of the lucky ones who shriek and point, leaping around like the blissfully demented contestants on Deal or No Deal.

Part of my disguise, in addition to the oversize hat and the big wraparound sunglasses, is my cell phone. Clamp that to the side of your face and you become a slightly different person, more inward, less engaged, and at this point in our cellular society, less noticeable.

“I’m in,” I say into the phone, keeping my voice low, not that anyone is likely to overhear me in the cacophony of machines. “No sign of Manning yet. But this place is huge, they could be anywhere. You enter through what looks like a giant tiki hut. Very dramatic lighting. There are three separate casinos and a bingo hall, all with cute names like Wampum and Sachem’s Cave and Wonderluck.”

“I doubt he’s there to gamble.”

Shane, stuck out in the parking lot, sounds frustrated.

“Wampum is about a million slot machines, rows and rows of them. Lots of older folks, some of them in wheelchairs. They must bring them in by the busload. Can’t see Manning anywhere. Okay, wait, I’m headed toward Wonderluck. Slot machines here, too, but mostly it looks like table games. The one they have on TV, Texas Hold Up.”

“Hold ‘Em,” says Shane, sounding exasperated. “Keep moving.”

“Texas whatever, I am moving. You should see this place. There’s a whole section for some sort of Chinese table game they play with green tiles, like mahjong, but it isn’t mahjong. The dealers are Asian, too. I thought this was a Native American thing?”

“Asians love to gamble. Every casino has a room like that. Keep looking, what do you see?”

I have trouble tearing my eyes away from the enthralled, tile-smacking Asians, who look as crazed as traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, shouting and gesturing and slamming tiles on the blue felt, eyes gleaming like, well, the madly blinking lights of the slot machines.

This corner of the casino feels more like Hong Kong or Macau—not that I’ve ever been further west than Pittsburgh. Looking around, I see antlike trails of feeble old folks trudging eagerly into the vast bingo hall, some of them tottering on walkers.

Old folks you might just as easily find in Long Island as in an Indian casino on the edge of the Everglades. Asians, blacks, whites, Latinos, most ethnic groups seem well represented, some gaming in groups, others traveling solo to their favorite machines. Everybody but the folks who own the place—I’ve yet to see anyone recognizably Native American, either among the uniformed staff, who wear cute little money-green vests, or among the players.

Pretty smart, I’m thinking. Take the money and keep it.

“Oh!” I exclaim, struggling to keep my voice low. “The bald guy with the eyes like eggs!”

“Salvatore Popkin. You see him?”

“In the area between gaming rooms there’s like a high-priced food court, except with sit-down restaurants? Oh look, they’ve got a Wolfgang Puck pizza joint! What am I saying, they have those in airports,” I add, rambling on, just an excitable girl and her cell.

“Popkin’s in a restaurant? Where are the others?”

“No, no. Sorry. He seems to be guarding an unmarked door in a hall between the restaurants. Or maybe it is marked, I can’t tell from here. Looks like the whole wall area behind him is smoked plate glass. Lots of dark, smoky accents in here.”

“Has he spotted you?”

“There are hundreds of people wandering around.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“No, he hasn’t spotted me. Relax, I’m fine.”

“Don’t get any closer,” Shane warns, husky in the receiver. “Just keep an eye on him. Just a glance, don’t look directly at him. Even from across a crowded room, a direct look will get your attention.”

“Yes, Mom.”

Exasperated, the voice in my ear goes, “Don’t move, damn it!”

I have absolutely no intention of obeying—where the egg man goes, I’ll follow—but for now Mr. Salvatore Popkin is glued to the door. Dressed in the same sort of shapeless nylon, soft-shell sports gear he was wearing when we confronted him at the airport. Sport stripes running down the baggy legs. The Nike version of Tony Soprano. What I hadn’t mentioned to Shane, the egg man is actively eyeballing the crowd, giving off a Jersey bouncer vibe, like better steer clear, little people, the VIPs are doing important VIP things. Like bullets would bounce off his cast-iron skull. Didn’t look quite so imposing when Shane bounced him off the concrete. No obvious sign of the injury to his collarbone, but he does appear a bit stiff on one side. Trendy little headset and earpiece may explain why he appears to be talking to himself.

I’m thinking about sidling closer, determining if the smoked-glass doorway he’s guarding is in fact unmarked, when something tugs at the hem of my blouse. Whirling around with hand raised, ready to take a slap at whatever lowlife is trying to cop a feel, I find Shane sitting in a casino wheelchair, wearing a floppy sunhat.

“Are you sure about this?” I ask, trying to shield him from view, not any easy task, considering the difference in size.

“Best I could think of on short notice,” he says, leaning to get a line of sight on the egg man. “You said it yourself, they remember my height.”

“At least let me tear the price tag off the hat. You look like that old lady on The Grand Old Opera.”

He chuckles. “Grand Ole Opry, and she was before your time.”

“Whatever. You know who I mean.”

“You’re right about this place being crowded,” he observes. “That helps.”

Shane’s scheme is, my opinion, totally whacked. I’m supposed to push the wheelchair, keeping the crowd between us and the egg man, and we’ll get a closer look. Shane has a theory that Manning is in the business office getting cash for a payoff. Either that or dealing directly with some casino employee or associate implicated in his son’s disappearance.

“The guy is a billionaire,” I say, grabbing hold of the wheelchair. “Why would he need cash from the casino?”

“He’s a fund investor. He doesn’t deal in cash, and criminals prefer folding money. It’s just a theory. Roll me up to the next casino entrance, we’ll work our way back.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m pushing but you’re not moving.”

“Oh,” he says. “Sorry.”

With him pushing the wheels, all I have to do is steer, or pretend to steer, and we’re moving along, keeping pace with the shuffling gamblers. What I find amazing is that no one is making or seeking eye contact. Even in the most crowded mall people tend to check each other out, maybe smile if the impulse strikes. Not here. The vibe is that everyone has his or her own bubble and none of the other bubbles really exist, they’re just background, like the continuous chiming of the slots, the whisper of the air-conditioning, the dreamy lighting that makes the blinking machines look more alive than most of the players.

We’re up to the entrance of Sachem’s Cave—more slot machines but bigger payoffs—and have made the turn, sneaking up on the egg man, when Shane urgently announces, “Look at Popkin. Something is going down.”

The egg man, Mr. Popkin, is apparently reacting to something he’s heard in his earpiece. Shaking his head and looking furtively around as he talks, as if he’s not sure what to expect. All nervous and jumpy.

Does he know about us? Have we been spotted, and the message relayed?

The weird thing is, the egg man looks scared.

“I’ll be damned,” says Shane, rising from the wheelchair.

Coming through the entrance, moving quickly with almost military precision, is a band of black-haired men, unmistakably Native American, and from the similarly dark, high-cheek-boned look of them, all sharing the same blood. Brothers and cousins, uncles and nephews, moving as one. They carry M4 carbines slung over lithe shoulders, not bows and arrows, and their uniform blouses are matching white guayaberra shirts with tribal police emblems, but there is no doubt about who they are.

A war party, ready for battle.

16. The Absolute Zero Of No

It’s an amazing sight, really, totally out of sync with the sedate atmosphere at the casino. The tribal security squad marches in, shoves aside the egg man—no resistance there—enters through the smoked-glass door, and emerges less than a minute later carrying Edwin Manning in an office chair.

A chair to which he is obviously clinging, having refused to move. Looking like a deposed king being borne away on his throne, he appears to be both livid with anger and frightened out of his mind.

“This all goes away!” he shouts, making a gesture that takes in the whole casino complex. “Think about it! Money, success, all gone! Just talk to the man, that’s all I’m asking! I’m begging you, please talk to him! Make him give me back my son!”

The men carrying him have eyes like chips of black ice. They betray no expression, pay no heed to their lively burden, hustling him out the casino as he clings awkwardly to the prison of his chair.

What really gets me, what puts the cold fear in my guts, is what happens next. Up in the chair, carried by those he cannot buy or influence, Manning seems to surrender himself to madness, a lunatic in suit and tie. He begins to scream wordlessly, saliva spraying from his mouth, tears leaking from his eyes. As if anguish and fear and frustration have made it impossible to communicate in words, and from now on only screams will do.

I find myself clinging to Randall Shane like Mr. Manning clings to the chair, because it’s either hold on or fall down.

The big guy senses my distress, squeezes my hand.

“Kind of like watching a patient undergo surgery without anesthesia,” he says softly.

“He’s falling apart. Something terrible has happened since we saw him. Something truly awful.”

“We don’t know that,” says Shane consolingly.

“I do.”

Bless the man, he does not argue, but instead decides to take action.

“Be right back,” he assures me, and then strides into the crowd on his long legs.

Be right back? No way am I missing this. So I’m right behind the big guy when he corners the goggle-eyed egg man and goes, “Sal—do they call you Sal?—we have to talk.”

To give him credit, the egg man looks more lost than frightened, although he does catch his breath and shrink back as Shane approaches.

“What are you doing here?” he demands, protuberant eyes rolling around like big white marbles in a jar of oil. “Are you nuts? You want to wreck everything, is that it?”

Shane raises his open hands to show he means no harm. “Furthest thing from my mind. All I want is talk. Your boss is in trouble, maybe you can help.”

Egg man closes his eyes and curses, uttering a few suggestions I’ve never before heard applied to human beings. Then he opens the eyes—amazingly puffy eyelids, blinking must be like lifting weights—and goes, pleading to heaven, “How do I get into this shit?”

“Look,” says Shane, sounding conciliatory. “It’s obvious that your boss has lost control of the situation. He’s afraid to call in the cops, make it official? Fine. I’m not the cops. I’m private. And we have exactly the same goal, the safe return of Seth and Kelly. We can cooperate, help each other out.”

“I dunno,” says the egg man, not looking at either one of us. “These people are just plain nuts. You see what they just did to Mr. Manning? He owns the joint and they treat him like shit.”

The guy rubs his shaved, chunk-o’-cheese head and squints, as if looking for a way to escape the range of Shane’s long arms. But Shane mirrors his moves and keeps him cornered without ever having to actually touch him.

“Who did this?” Shane asks, persisting. “Who took Seth and Kelly?”

The egg man sighs, giving the impression that not only does he want to avoid any sort of physical confrontation, he also knows he’s way out of his depth and really could use some help.

“I work the casinos, you know? Like a bouncer, only I get paid better. My so-called career in the ring, all it ever gave me was a face that scares some people. Not you obviously, and not so much you, either, Miss Whoever-you-are.”

“Jane Garner,” I remind him. “What happened to Seth Manning? Is he still alive? Is my daughter still alive?”

He shrugs, the kind of whole-body shrug that can only be deployed by those born and raised in the part of New Jersey that lies a bridge or tunnel away from New York City. “If I knew I’d tell you, honest. Come on, think I’d hold out on a worried mom? I ain’t that kind of guy.”

“What do you know, Mr. Popkin?”

“Call me Sally, please,” the man says. He seems relieved that I’m asking the questions at the moment, rather than Shane, who looms over both of us, exuding energetic patience. “I been Sally Pop all my life, that’s what I’m used to. What do I know? Less every day. But I do know Mr. Manning is in trouble, big trouble, and he don’t know what to do. All his money, that don’t seem to be helping.”

“Who did it, Sally? Who took Seth?”

Sally the egg man studies me, makes up his mind. “What I heard between the lines, it’s some crazy big-shot Indian everybody’s scared of. But I’m guessing, you know? ‘Cause Mr. Manning, he don’t share with me. Not specific to names he don’t.”

“You sure about that?” Shane interjects. “No name?”

“I told you, he don’t share,” the egg man says indignantly. He’s tottering heel-to-toe on his Nike running shoes, gathering himself for a move or maybe looking for a way to regain his dignity. “I told you something,” he says to Shane. “Now you tell me something, awright? How the hell did you know we’d be here? You’re a New York guy.”

Shane chuckles. “I’m an everywhere guy, Sally. Seriously, you’re not that hard to find. I followed the money and here we are. You’re in charge of Mr. Manning’s security, is that correct?”

“Yeah, for the moment,” he says, jutting out his chin with pride and defiance. “So what?”

“So you better get out there and help calm him down before he gets arrested,” Shane says, indicating the commotion that has continued out into the parking lot. “And if you want to do your boss a big favor, have him call me. I can help. No cops, no FBI, and no charge. Just someone very discreet who has done this before.”

“You, huh?”

Shane tucks a business card into Sally the egg man’s pocket.

“Me,” he says. “Go on, get out there and help the poor man.”

Under the brutal, incandescent sun, Edwin Manning seems to have recovered the gift of language. Dumped from the chair to his own two feet, he stands his ground like a belligerent little general, reading the riot act to the squad of Nakosha security goons who ejected him from the casino complex.

“Are you people completely stupid?” he demands, strutting the hot pavement. He adjusts his striped club tie, squares his shoulders. “What happens when the money dries up? What happens when the casino closes? What happens when the federal government revisits your tribal status? You really think you can get away with protecting a monster? You think you’re above all laws? You think you can walk away from this? No, no, the world doesn’t work that way. You made this man, this beast, you can’t deny your responsibility. You can’t pretend he’s no longer yours.”

But they do walk away, without acknowledging his pleas and threats. To them Manning is simply white noise in a tailored suit.

Having been abandoned by the Nakosha goon squad, he’s left with his own. Sally Pop approaches the boss like he’s a live grenade, imparts some comment to which Manning reacts with cold fury, shouting, “No! I told you, no! Absolutely not!”

Shane and I have been taking all this in from a distance, but at the moment Sally retreats, Manning looks up, searching the parking lot. He’s drawn quite an audience, entertainment for the curious, the bored and the broke, but he spots us immediately. More likely he spots Shane rising above the herd and I’m just part of the package.

He stares at us with eyes that have the charm and welcome of black holes sucking all light from the universe, and shakes his head firmly.

No, no, a zillion times no. The absolute zero of no.

17. Quantum Physics

When the show is over and the burnt-orange Hummer has exited the parking lot, Randall Shane decides the time has come for straight talk.

“Coffee?” he asks. “Can we sit down, take a load off?”

His client remains agitated, wanting to do something, anything. As if perpetual motion means not having to think about the possibility of it all ending badly. “Aren’t we going to follow them?” she asks plaintively.

“No point,” Shane tells her gently. “I’ll buy you a coffee and tell you why.”

“I don’t need a coffee,” she says, still eyeing the exit road where the Hummer vanished.

“We need to sit,” he insists.

Together they reenter the casino complex, where business has resumed, pretty much as if nothing had happened. Which Shane thinks may be close to the truth. Just beyond the giant phony tiki hut he finds a pseudo-Starbucks, scores a tall, no sugar, for himself and a bottled water for Mrs. Garner. Want it or not, she needs to hydrate, if only to replenish the tears. Not that she’s blubbering or complaining or throwing herself on his willing shoulder. Just weeping silent rivers that drip from the cute little cleft in her chin.

“This is so messed up,” she says, accepting the bottle of water.

“Agreed.”

“A man like that flips out, it must be really bad.”

“It’s not good,” he concedes.

“Kelly’s already dead,” she says miserably. “That’s what kidnappers do. I knew that, I just didn’t want to think about it, you know?”

He clears his throat and says, “Look at me, Jane.”

Wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand, she studies him with glistening eyes.

“When there’s no hope, I’ll let you know,” he promises. “Good, bad or tragic, I’ll tell you the truth. We’re not there yet.”

“But you gave up,” she reminds him. “You didn’t follow them.”

“Because the action is right here,” he says, tapping his finger on the laminate of little café table. “Manning was on a mission—he wanted information or cooperation, or both—and they blew him off. The interesting thing is that it wasn’t casino security that chucked him out, it was the tribe. Called in from outside. They have adequate security in place, uniforms working for the casino, so why bring in the tribal heavies, armed with carbines?”

“Because the tribe is involved?” she responds, perking up. The tears have stopped flowing.

“That appears to be a certainty,” he agrees. “The tribe, or some individual member of the tribe who may be a rogue actor. According to Popkin, quote, ‘some crazy big-shot Indian everybody’s scared of,’ unquote.”

“But he didn’t know who, exactly. And Manning isn’t going to tell us.”

“There’s another way,” he suggests. “It starts with you going back to the hotel.”

“And what do I do at the hotel?” she asks warily.

“Couple of things. You can monitor the GPS tracker from there, see where Manning goes.”

“But not follow him?”

“No. They’ll be looking for us now and if they spot a tail his behavior will change.” He leans forward, speaking intimately, confidentially. “Detective work may not be rocket science, but it really is like quantum physics—by observing something you change it. So we back off and let the tracker software do its thing, logging locations. The other thing, and this is your primary mission, I want you to locate the best, most aggressive criminal attorney in Miami. Be ready to contact him or her.”

She looks puzzled. “Why do I need a lawyer?”

“You don’t,” he says, and grimaces.

“But you might?”

He nods. “I’m going to rattle some cages, see what falls out.”

After the lady departs, somewhat reluctantly, Shane gets down to business. Keenly aware that he’s not operating in familiar or friendly territory, in terms of legal jeopardy. Special Agent Healy spelled it out—if he gets his butt in a sling on Nakosha territory, don’t expect the cavalry to come to his rescue. He will not be backed up, picked up or bailed out, not by the friendlies. Mess up and he’ll be on his own, dealing with tribal law enforcement.

Worrisome, but he sees no alternative. Jane Garner has it mostly right. Edwin Manning’s behavior indicates a deteriorating situation. The man looked like he’d seen a ghost or, more likely, evidence that the captors were willing to inflict harm on his son. Which means they had started cutting, always a bad sign.

Ears, noses, toes, fingers. Shane has seen it all, the savage proof of savage intentions, designed to frighten, intimidate, extort. One case, the abductors drained a pint of blood from the victim, sent it along with a ransom note. The lab determined the blood came from the vic, and that he was alive at the time—everybody found that very encouraging—but what the lab couldn’t determine was the intention of the perpetrators, who had in fact let their captive to bleed out. Not a happy ending.

Shane figures he’s got a day, maybe two. After that it will be a body search.

The boss of casino security is, as Shane had already surmised, a former police officer. City of Miami, not the beach, and nowhere near old enough to take retirement.

“Sixteen wonderful years,” Tony Carlos says, folding his hands over his flat, forty-year-old stomach. Obviously an area he works on, refining his abs, watching his diet. Goes with the manicure and the haircut and the hair gel and the perfect spa tan. His lime-green casino security blazer rests on a padded hanger. No tie—this isn’t exactly tie country—but he’s wearing a crisp white dress shirt, not a wrinkle on it, and his light-gray dress slacks are similarly flawless. On his dapper feet, spit-shined Bruno Magli oxfords with extra thick soft rubber soles, the better to walk on acres of carpeted concrete.