Текст книги "Lost"

Автор книги: Chris Jordan

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“No. I’m not suggesting that. They’ll find his lair eventually. But the sun is almost down, so the air search will suspend until first light. That leaves the tribal police, coordinating with FBI. But the ground effort will be limited by darkness, too. Maybe they’ll find her tonight, maybe they won’t. You have to pick your battles, Mrs. Garner, and my battle isn’t with the search parties, it’s out here on the periphery of the investigation, trying to find another way in.”

“You said that, find another way in, but what does it mean?”

“Pursuing intelligence. Locating someone who may have knowledge of Ricky Lang’s secret places. Where he’d go if he was hiding from the world.”

Shane pivots the laptop, points to the screen.

“See this? That’s a Google Earth view of the Everglades. This little corner up here, that’s the Nakosha reservation, but it borders wilderness on two sides, all of which is part of either Everglades National Park or Big Cypress National Preserve. That’s over three million acres, and the only human occupation is around the edges—and that’s only within the area officially designated as parkland. The actual wilderness is at least five times larger. Very few roads, and most of those are on the periphery. There are hundreds of square miles that can only be accessed on foot or, in a limited way, by airboat.”

“So it really is hopeless. He could be anywhere.”

“No, no. He’s somewhere, a definite somewhere,” Shane strenuously insists. “That’s my point. We need to find a way in to Ricky Lang’s world. Either by locating one of his partners in crime, or an individual who knows him intimately and is willing to talk.”

“Whittle or this Fish person.”

“Precisely.”

Suddenly Shane puts the laptop aside and leaps up, as if he’s got ants in his pants. Or, given our location, roaches. But it’s his cell phone, which he left on vibe, and soon enough he flips it open.

“Agent Healy? We’re fine, any news? I see.”

He shakes his head at me, restarting my heart.

“Good, excellent,” he says, using his eyes to let me know the information isn’t life or death. “Let me get a pen, I want to write this down.”

He fumbles around in his luggage, locating notebook and pen. He listens for about five minutes, saying little more than uh-huh, and small encouragements to keep Healy talking. Finally he concludes, “Sean? Thank you very much. We really and truly appreciate everything you’ve done, everything you’re doing. We know the operation is in good hands. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Garner? She says yes. Excellent. Talk to you soon.”

He flips the phone shut, sits there thoughtfully, as if ticking over various ideas. “Interesting,” he says. “We finally have a motive.”

“Beyond him being crazy?”

“Might be what made him crazy. Agent Healy just interviewed Ricky Lang’s live-in girlfriend. Apparently this is a recent relationship and the girl has no connection to the tribe, but she does know that Ricky has been obsessed about his dead children.”

“Dead children?” I say, the words catching in my throat.

“Six months ago Lang’s children perished in a house fire. According to the girlfriend, Ricky blames the tribal council.”

“Oh my God. You think they killed his children?”

“No idea,” says Shane. “This is all second– or third-hand information. But if Lang holds the tribe responsible for the death of his kids, that explains a lot.”

“He’s out of his mind with grief.”

Shane nods thoughtfully. “And seeking revenge.”

6. Mr. Crispy Says Goodbye

Roy figures patience is in order, take it one step at a time. Dug and Stick have been on his case about the helicopters flitting over the airfield four or five times in the fading hour before sunset, as if puzzling out whether to bother landing. Like all this unwanted attention is his fault somehow.

Stick Davis, more or less sober, wants to know what the Feds are looking for, and what does it have to do with a stolen Beechcraft.

“This some kind of sting operation?” he asks in his deceptively casual Alabama drawl. “Y’all setting up old Stick?”

Roy figures Stick is armed someway or other. Not in the vicinity of his waist—the oddly protuberant drinker’s belly takes up all the available space—but maybe an ankle iron, or a larger-caliber handgun secreted in the tattered backpack on the floor of the truck.

Stick in the rear seat, legs out, ankles crossed, wearing leather deck shoes without socks. Actually humming to himself and twiddling his thumbs. A creature never looked so relaxed. Which you might say about a rattlesnake curled behind a rock, if you didn’t know squat about venomous snakes.

Tell him the truth, more or less, Roy decides. As much truth as needs telling.

“They’re lookin’ for a couple of folks, none of ‘em us,” he says. “None of your concern. Nothin’ to do with the airplane.”

Stick chuckles, shaking his head. “Roy, you know what? I wasn’t born yesterday. Other thing, I ain’t figure on getting arrested today, awright? So whyn’t you tell old Uncle Stick what’s really going on?”

Dug, looking eager, says, “It’s a secret, ain’t it, Roy?”

The new Dodge Ram is parked at a deserted rest stop area just outside the reservation. Not that anyone has picnicked here lately—with the crumbling concrete benches and the hard-scrabble ground strewn with broken glass, the area is not exactly welcoming. Not that it matters. None of them have exited the cab, not wanting to be clocked by whatever long-range cameras or spotting devices they may have aboard the surveillance helicopters. Roy has left the motor running to boost the AC, but the cab feels close and smells of whatever Dug has tracked in on his boots. His twin being a magnet for shit of all species. Pig, deer, dog or human; if a turd is out there, Dug will find it.

“What happened is, Ricky Lang detained a few people,” Roy explains. “They’re lookin’ for them, the, um, people, not the airplane.”

“You saying the Beech isn’t directly involved?” Stick wants to know.

“Not no more it ain’t. Plus, Ricky is on the run, busy getting his butt chased by about five hundred cops. So this is our opportunity to make a few dollars.”

“Uh-huh,” says Stick. “Figured something like that. You’re taking an opportunity.”

“You still in?”

“Until I’m out. Which will be decided dependin’ on my observations of the situation. Calculating risk, we call it.”

“There’s always risk,” Roy points out.

Stick laughs. “Oh my. The boy is a philosopher.”

They sit in the crap stink of the Dodge Ram until the sun winks out over the Everglades. There one moment, gone the next. Just to be sure they wait out the twilight, what the old-timers call “after light,” and there comes a time when the helicopters retreat to the east, seeking home base and refueling.

The vast Everglades, difficult to search in daylight, are impossible at night.

Roy backs out of the rest stop, drives onto the access road. No headlights because he’s heard that satellites can detect running lights. The boundaries of the narrow road are marked by the red eyes of coons and other small creatures sniffing out the truck as it passes. Roy driving with care and concentration, thinking about the multimillion-dollar Beechcraft King Air 350. How he’ll trade the insanely valuable airplane for a new life. Buy some old farm up in the Carolinas or maybe Kentucky, see what happens next. Make sure there’s a cabin for Dug, a place he’ll feel comfortable. Not in the main house, surely. All his brother needs is a place to lay down and creatures to kill. Squirrel or possum or house cat, four legged or two, Dug ain’t particular, so long as he can make it dead.

The airfield glows faintly with the light of early-rising stars. Roy aims the big Dodge like a beacon, crunching on fine gravel until they arrive at the mound of earth that forms the camouflaged hangar. He can feel Stick tensing in the back seat, eyes full of the darkness, thirsty for any sign of betrayal. His own heart slamming because for all he knows the FBI has staked out the hangar.

Meantime Dug, soothed by a chronic lack of imagination, comes awake with a grunt. “Where we at?” he wants to know, grumpy as a child.

“We’re here,” Roy whispers. “Money in the bank, ain’t that right, Stick?”

They wait for a while in the truck, engine off and ticking as it cools, until Roy gathers up his courage and steps out, ready or not, here he comes. Standing in the hot velvety hush of backcountry nightfall, ears keen for the cocking of a gun or the crunch of boots on gravel.

When he’s satisfied they’re alone, Roy tells his brother to get out, hands him the key.

Dug fumbles with the padlock, cussing softly and heaves open the big door. Yawning blackness within, and blessed silence. The airplane in faint silhouette, crouching like some great bird, confident in its stillness.

“No lights,” Stick orders sharply, when Dug reaches for a flashlight. And then softer, mostly to himself. “Hell on toast, we might actually get away with this. Right under their noses, wouldn’t that be sweet!”

The Whittle brothers rig up the tow line, hooking a rope loop on the front bumper, and slowly back the big aircraft out of the hangar once again, this time forever.

“Lordy me,” Stick says, gazing in rapture at the aircraft. “Boys, let’s gas ‘er up, get this show on the road.”

Dug peels the tarp off the back of the Dodge Ram, exposing two drums of Jet-A fuel. Tough to come by, but Stick insisted on the real deal, no substituting high-test and kerosene for properly blended turboprop fuel. Something about pure filtration and low flash, typical pilot talk. Roy uncoils the thick rubber hose and then Stick takes charge, muttering about spilled fuel marking the wings. He uses a tiny penlight to illuminate the fuel access and position the nozzle as Dug works the hand crank on the drums. Dug enjoying the fumes—as a boy he’d huffed gasoline a time or two, seeking extra numbness, and vaguely recalls the cell-killing experience with fondness.

Twenty minutes later the tanks are topped off and Stick Davis has a grin that shows in the dark. “It’s less than five hundred nautical miles to Cancun,” he reminds them, strutting around the aircraft as he goes over a cursory checklist. “Make a little stop, change the tail numbers, then hop over to see my friends in Guatemala.”

“These are the friends want the plane?”

“Them or associates of theirs. Might end up in Caracas or São Palo, hard to say.”

“How much, you figure?” Roy pretty much knows, but wants to savor the amount.

“This little beauty?” says Stick, hands massaging his little belly as he gazes fondly at the plane. “With less than three hundred hours on the airframe? The original owner has to have shelled out close to five mil. Maybe more, with that particular avionics package. If we had clear title we’d get, say, four million easy.”

“Four million,” says Dug. Anything more than will fit in his wallet he can’t quite fathom.

“That’s if we owned it legal, which we don’t,” Stick points out. “Lucky I know some who ain’t particular.”

“So how much?”

“What I said before. On the ground in Guatemala, I won’t take a penny less than a cool million. Cash, U.S. dollars, and we split it fifty-fifty, true partners in crime.”

Roy figures that means two million, but he doesn’t care how much Stick Davis steals so long as he clears the agreed-upon five hundred thousand. That was the deal, sealed on a handshake at the Hunt Club. Roy thinking, don’t be greedy, that’s what wrecked his father, trying to squeeze a crooked deal for every last dollar.

For the first time in a week, Roy feels like he’s back in control. Things have finally fallen in place. Ricky Lang on the run is the best thing could have happened. He and Dug can walk away from the crazy kidnapping, make their money on the airplane, still have enough for a fresh start. Meantime Ricky takes the fall, probably with a SWAT bullet in his whacked-out brain, end of story.

Stick is chattering on about vectors and airspeed in a way that makes Roy think he’s gotten into the vodka. How exactly he can’t imagine, since he showed up sober and hasn’t, so far as Roy has observed, taken a swig of anything. What, does he distill alcohol out of the air? Absorb it through his skin? Then again, Roy knows from long familial experience how clever boozers can be, how furtive, sucking down a medicinal shot so fast the human eye can barely register, like a hummingbird probing a blossom for nectar.

Whatever, Stick Davis has a reputation for getting an overloaded crate off the ground even when so drunk he can’t keep both eyes open. Plus he’ll be flying light in a new machine, nothing but himself and the fuel that will get him to wherever it is he’s going. Anywhere but Cancun, Roy figures, he’s mentioned that as a destination strictly for diversionary purposes. Probably heading somewhere further down the coast of Mexico. Full tanks give him range to Costa Rica, for that matter. Knowing Stick, he may sell the Beech to a drug king pin, then fly the same aircraft home with a full load, make out on both ends.

Roy doesn’t care where he goes or what he drinks, so long as he delivers the agreed-upon sum.

“Sure you don’t want to come along for the ride?” Stick teases.

“That’s your deal,” Roy says. “Ours is both feet on the ground, right, Dug?”

“Whatever you say, Roy,” says Dug, still a little high from the whiffs of jet fuel.

They’re helping Stick align the aircraft on the narrow runway when Ricky Lang suddenly materializes out of the darkness, a plastic five-gallon bucket in one hand and a.45 caliber Glock in the other.

“Going somewhere?” he says, at the same time squeezing off a round that explodes through Stick’s left foot.

Big bad Ricky Lang standing over the writhing man, saying, in a conversational tone, “You must be the pilot, because these two dumb crackers couldn’t fly a kite.”

Roy and Dug are both frozen, hands on the wings of the aircraft. Dug waiting on his brother to make a decision and Roy calculating if he can get back to the truck and retrieve his handgun before Ricky blows a hole in his back. Deciding no, he can’t. Amazed by the situation, and by Lang’s bizarre appearance—he seems to have bathed in mud, bare-chested, his big arms glistening in the starlight, and the old Moe Howard haircut slicked back and interlaced with what appears to be strands of swamp grass.

Looks like he’s got a head full of snakes, and that’s how he’s acting, too.

“Your name is Davis,” Ricky says to Stick, who’s rolling around, clutching his shattered foot. “I can read your mind. I can see your spine and all the bones. I can see your fat liver.”

Roy, careful not to make any sudden moves, slowly backs away from the wing and says, “It’s not what you think.”

Ricky finds the remark hilarious. But his laughter is silent and therefore terrifying.

“You’re on the run, we figured you’d need money,” says Roy.

Even funnier. Ricky finally gets his breath back and says, “Do exactly what I say or you’re dead.”

Dug looks sullen but Roy quickly nods assent.

Ricky says, “Kill the girl and bring the boy to me.”

He tells them where and when to deliver Seth Manning, watches them scoot away like scalded kittens, scampering to their precious pickup truck, away to do his bidding. Underlings dispatched, his attention returns to the wounded pilot, who is attempting to crawl away. Not making much progress, either.

“How you doing, Mr. Davis? Did you find your toes?”

Stick whimpers.

Ricky goes, “Inside your head, you know what I see? I see lies and alcohol. I see guns and money and drugs. I see a life wasted ruining the lives of others.”

“Don’t shoot,” Stick begs, holding up his hands as if attempting to catch bullets. “Please don’t shoot.”

“Sure, whatever you want,” Ricky says, slipping the Glock into the pocket of his muddy cargo pants. “Ready?” he asks.

Stick, weeping, asks, “R-r-ready for what?”

Using both hands, Ricky upends the five-gallon bucket of jet fuel, drenching the pilot.

Stick coughs, begins to shiver as the rapidly evaporating, highly flammable fuel cools his flesh. He’s been around, seen some amazing sights in his time, and he knows what happens next.

“Shoot me,” he begs. “Shoot me in the head.”

Ricky apologizes, explains that he’s already put the gun away, and that therefore it will not be possible to shoot Stick in the head.

Then he strikes a match.

7. The Mysterious Mr. Fish

Stuffed animals are not my thing. Not teddy bears, not real bears, stuffed. Not in museums, not in homes, and certainly not in restaurants. Excuse me, but killing an animal and trying to make it look alive, or not quite dead? Creepy. You want to kill a big deer? Catch a big fish? Fine. Eat what you want and throw the rest away. Just don’t expect me to admire it on your wall.

So the Glade City Hunt Club is not exactly my kind of place. Then again, we’re not here to admire the alligators nailed to the paneled wall, or the huge black bear that guards the entrance, glaring at visitors with beady glass eyes and exposed fangs that look like they need a good brushing.

Ugh, disgusting. The bar, where the only thing stuffed is the tip jar, is not my scene, either. In terms of design it’s actually quite pleasant. A curved mahogany bar top with matching brass rails, and wide-bladed ceiling fans stirring the thick, muggy air. Behind the bar, liquor bottles glow like amber jewelry, illuminated by hidden lights. It’s the clientele that turns me off. Too much testosterone, combined with the loud, braying voices of manly men bragging about themselves. Truth be known, I go for the strong silent types, and silence does not seem to be an option at this particular watering hole.

We’ve been told that if you want to locate Leo Fish, who doesn’t want to be found, start at the Hunt Club. One of the guides will know where to find him, although persuading any of the locals to help an outsider might be tough.

That’s the gospel according to Trishy with the flat-gray eyes. We’re about to see if there’s anything to what she says. Shane glances at his watch, announces, “We haven’t got time for finesse,” and then abruptly strides out onto the screened-in porch, where the raucous crowd clusters two or three deep around the bar. Leaving me at the entrance looking lost and feeling a lot of hot stares checking me out.

Shane is anything but lost. He opens his wallet, extracts some cash and waves his fist high in the air.

“Five hundred dollars to the man who can put me in contact with Leo Fish!”

Wow. The resulting silence is shocking to the ear. An entire roomful of macho hunter-fisher types eyeballing the big guy, sizing him up. Maybe this was what it was like in the Old West when a new marshal came to town. I’m ready to duck in case gunfire erupts, but after a few thudding heartbeats, conversation returns to the previous level. Eyes look elsewhere. We’re being ignored.

Shane waves his fist again. “Hey! Pay attention, you maggots!”

Again, utter silence, not to mention death-ray looks.

Shane, having got their full and undivided attention, explains: “We need to contact Leo Fish because he may be able to help us save the life of a young woman. Anybody who wants the finder’s fee, or who just wants to do the right thing, may contact me in the parking lot at the Motorcourt inn. I’ll be there for the next hour. The man who helps me find Leo Fish will have a friend for life, as well as the five hundred. Thank you for your attention and have a good night.”

He takes me by the hand and more or less drags me out of the Hunt Club and doesn’t let go until we get to the rental car.

“Sorry,” he says. “The exit was overly dramatic but I wanted to leave ‘em hanging. Wondering who you are. Maybe curious enough to help.”

“That was an act?” I say, a bit breathless from trying to keep up. “‘Pay attention, you maggots’?”

Shane gets in, fires up the engine and puts the car in gear. “Absolutely. We want the whole town buzzing. If anybody in Glade City knows how to put us in contact with the mysterious Mr. Fish we’ll know in the next hour. And if not, we’ll know that, too, and not be wasting our precious time.”

“Kelly’s precious time,” I remind him.

“Exactly,” he says.

Shane’s idea is to wait outside in the Motorcourt parking lot, so any potential snitches will feel more comfortable approaching under cover of darkness. But the mosquitoes are so bad—they feel as big as blue jays—that we have to remain in the Crown Vic or be drained of blood long before the hour is up.

“How did they stand it around here before they had screens and air-conditioning?” I ask.

“I assume they drank heavily. A habit that doesn’t appear to have died out with the invention of bug spray.”

Shane is trying to keep the conversation light, but I just can’t do it. Can’t fake being wry and relaxed when inside I’m screaming.

“When will they start searching again?” I want to know.

Shane considers, then replies, “There may be ground units working through the night, investigating known locations. Air surveillance will resume when the sun rises.”

“That may be too late,” I point out.

“All we can do is keep trying,” Shane tells me. “Never give up. That’s the only way to proceed, and you’d be surprised how often ‘never give up’ produces results.”

To his everlasting credit, the promised results are produced about fifteen minutes later, when an old pickup bounces into the parking lot and begins to circle, as if uncertain of what to do next.

Shane gets out, does his raised-fist thing, and the truck stops. A scrawny little dude gets out, looks around to see whether he’s been followed. I’m beginning to recognize the type. Except for the long scraggly hair tied in a ponytail, he could be kin to the sheriff, or to Trishy for that matter.

“What you want Fish for?” he asks suspiciously. “You a cop?”

“Retired. This concerns Ricky Lang. Heard he was married to Leo Fish’s sister, and thought he might help us find Mr. Lang.”

“The crazy injun they huntin’ for?”

“The fugitive,” Shane insists. “Lang kidnapped this woman’s daughter.”

“Um, Leo and Ricky don’t exactly get along.”

“That’s no concern of ours. We just want possible locations. Can you contact Mr. Fish or not?”

The scrawny dude with the ponytail scrutinizes the larger man. “It ain’t like Leo’s got a phone or ‘lecricity. He’s a white man but lives more or less like them Seminole Indians in the old days. He ain’t got a normal home, he camps out deep in the Glades, moving when it pleases him. Take me two hours to get to him by airboat, and two hours back if he wants to come.”

“Take me to him,” Shane says. “I’ll talk to him there, wherever it is.”

Ponytail dude shakes his head. “No way, Jose. Ain’t leadin’ no lawman to Leo Fish. I’ll take him your message, see what he says, but it’ll cost you a thousand.” He looks at me for the first time, nods politely. “Evening, ma’am. Airboat is expensive to run, blows through gas like you wouldn’t believe, that’s why I got to get my price.”

“Two hours?” asks Shane.

“Four or five round trip.”

Shane nods agreement. “Okay. Five hundred to cover the cost of the airboat, regardless. A thousand if you bring me Leo Fish.”

Scrawny licks his chapped lips. “The five up front?”

“When you get back,” Shane says firmly.

“How I know you won’t drive away, leave me for a fool?”

“Because you have my word.”

“Okay, deal.” Scrawny shakes on it, looking like he believes in Randall Shane.

That makes two of us.

8. The Furious Thing

Roy Whittle has Old Sparky on his mind. The electrified killing machine used by the state of Florida to execute death-row inmates. Called Old Sparky because the method—surging two thousand volts through the human body—is not entirely reliable. Sometimes the inmate’s head catches fire and has to be doused with a handy bucket of water, kept nearby for that purpose. Sometimes the heart fails to stop beating and a second or third jolt is required. Sometimes, and this is what really bothers Roy, the inmate starts sizzling like a big ham under the broiler.

If it comes to that, Roy figures he’ll opt for lethal injection, on the grounds that going to sleep and never waking up is way better than cooking to death.

“How you gonna do it?” Dug wants to know as they approach their destination.

Distracted by thoughts of flaming skulls, Roy asks, “How’m I do what?”

“Kill the girl.”

Roy slows the truck to a stop, shifts the stick to neutral, and looks his brother in the eye. “We’re not killing no girl, get that straight.”

Dug has that stubborn look he gets. “Ricky said.”

“Ricky Lang done lost his mind,” Roy reminds him. “Think about it. We kill the girl, there’s nothing left for us. Ain’t like he’ll be around to pay us our share. Whatever he’s got planned, it ends with him getting his head blown off.”

“He told you that?”

“Hell no! Didn’t have to. The crazy bastard thinks he’s Superman. He thinks bullets can’t touch him. And sooner or later, he’ll find out different.”

That silences the slower twin for a few moments as he processes the information. “I could do it if you want,” Dug eventually offers. “Tap her down.”

Most observers would conclude that Roy Whittle shows remarkable patience with his brother, but even he has his limits. “Listen to me, Dug. Get this straight. The girl is our only remaining chance of getting anything out of this. We’ll trade her for money once Ricky’s gone.”

Dug makes a face, stares at his hands. “Ricky burned Stick,” he points out.

“Yeah, he did, and he burned the plane, too, but he ain’t going to burn us. You’re gonna take the boy to him, like he wants. That’s all he really cares about, the rich man’s son. He won’t know if the girl’s alive or buried in the swamp. We’ll keep her somewhere safe till this blows over, then see what we can get for her. If her family won’t pay, we’ll find someone who will. Good-lookin’ white girl that age is fully negotiable.”

Dug is clearly troubled, but mutters a reluctant acceptance of his brother’s superior judgment. “Whatever you say, Roy.”

Roy sighs, keenly aware their prospects have plummeted. “I know what you’re thinking and you’re right. A thousand percent right. We messed up, getting in with Ricky Lang, but I’m gonna fix it. That’s a promise. Carolinas here we come.”

They drive until the road ends, then hike half a mile through the saw grass, following an old Indian trail so obscure and overgrown you have to know it’s there. A perfectly good ATV waits on the other end, designed for terrain like this, but Ricky has insisted it only be used for transporting the captives, and that at all other times it remain hidden under camo-netting, far away from prying eyes.

The Whittle brothers make do, proceeding afoot, having covered the same ground several times recently. The night is especially dark—no moon, and the stars obscured by heavy clouds. Roy illuminates the way with a flashlight, figuring if satellites can pick up flashlights they’re screwed anyway. Dug grunting as the sharp grass whips at his legs but Roy knows his twin could go like this for miles, even in the night. Maybe especially at night, if there’s something to hunt.

Say what you like about Dug, he’s never been scared of the dark. Almost the reverse, like he’d come up with a notion that darkness protected him from those who tormented him by daylight. Namely their father, until Dug got too big to beat, and the kids who taunted him during his brief and disastrous stint in school.

They come upon the remains of the old settlement just beyond the saw grass, at the edge of where the wetlands begin. One of Ricky Lang’s backcountry lairs. The settlement, originally an Indian camp, had eventually included a dozen or so ramshackle trailers, as well as a few decrepit chickee huts and a tarpaper shack or two. Population, as Roy understood it, had been mixed. Members of the Lang clan, some mixed-blood Seminoles, a few cracker trappers who’d gone native or who just liked living outside of civilization. At the end, tribal drug runners had used it as a storage depot. A little world all its own, or so Roy imagines, having seen similar type settlements in the Ten Thousand Islands, where the populace was pretty much white, though equally impoverished.

Park rangers had eventually taken over, clearing out the trailers, burning the shacks. Then at some point the area had been zoned inside the Nakosha Reservation and mostly forgotten. Not by Ricky Lang, though, who liked the fact that it could be accessed by land or by water. Plus, from the air it looked like nothing more than a small clearing in the saw grass, one of thousands of such bald spots within the Glades. The useful bits that remain are undercover, out of sight.

“I’ll check on the girl,” Roy tells his brother. “You get the other one, take him to Ricky.”

“Where you gonna put the girl?” Dug wants to know.

“Dunno. Closer to home, I guess. Someplace Ricky doesn’t know.”

Truth is, Roy isn’t sure he wants Dug to know the location. He’s got it fixed in his mind the girl needs killing, and Roy knows his twin well enough to understand that his stubborn notions can become obsessions that must be acted upon. Like the neighborhood pets when they were boys, and a few other much more serious incidents later on.

Killing wasn’t a sex type thing with Dug, just that he liked to snuff things out. Household cats, wild pigs, human beings, they all gave similar satisfaction.

“What if he asks?” Dug says.

“You tell him I took care of it. Just hand over the boy and get out of there. He won’t be expecting no long conversations. You got your knife?”

“Always got my knife,” Dug responds with elaborate dignity.

“Okay then. You best be careful. Whole idea is, we come out of this alive. We got plans, remember?”

“I get my own cabin.”

“You get your own cabin, and enough ammo to kill everything in a ten-mile radius, how does that sound?”

“Good,” says Dug, and obediently turns to the path that will take him to the boy.

Roy hurries toward the girl. He can feel Ricky Lang in his head, a nudge of pure fear that makes his knees feel weak. He’s well aware of the terrible risk he’s taking by failing to obey. My God, look what befell poor Stick! One moment a laid-back dude, a living legend, the next moment nothing more than a howl in the flames. Ricky’s way of saying see what happens to those who disobey. Not that he’d ever actually forbidden Roy from hijacking the aircraft, selling it on the black market. Like most of Ricky’s rules it was a presumed thing, subject to his whims.