Текст книги "Lost"

Автор книги: Chris Jordan

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“Orlando,” he says, rolling the word around on his tongue. “That’s Disney World, right?”

“Yes, sir. Disney World, Sea World, lots of worlds in Orlando.”

“And your name ain’t really Donny, am I right about that, too?”

The barkeep glances warily at his own name tag. “It’s like a tradition, I guess.”

“For Donny Nyles, yeah. This was his bar, back in the day.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah. You know what he did once, Donny Nyles? Got in a fight with some tourist, mighta been from Orlando, come to think, and he hits the guy with one of those little clubs they break ice with, and the guy is so drunk he’s knocked out cold. So Donny decides to wake him up by throwing him off the dock. Guy never woke up. He drowned. They stood there and watched him drown in his sleep. Pretty funny, huh?”

The barkeep shrugs. “If you say so.”

No more “sir,” Roy notes. Apparently the “sir” time is over. He wonders why he’s being ugly to a young man, a stranger that’s never done him any particular harm, and then he remembers why. He hates the Hunt Club and everybody in it including, at the moment, himself.

“Donny Nyles thought it was real amusing,” Roy goes on, unable to stop himself, the dangerous edge in his voice sharpening like a gutting knife on a grindstone. “Must have told that story a hundred times, about how he drowned a guy trying to wake him up. Most folks, prob’ly they thought it was just a bar story, only it really happened. Donny, the guy whose name you got on that little green tag on your skinny little chest, he thought killing a loser was really funny, like a good fart joke or a rubber crutch.”

The fake Donny is eyeing the intercom, wondering if he’ll have to call in enforcements, when Stick Wilson enters the bar and raises his straw cowboy hat. “Roy the boy!”

“Hey, Stick.”

Stick must be about forty now, and looks it, still skinny everywhere but for his little vodka belly, straining the buttons of his safari shirt. Aviator glasses covering bloodshot eyes the color of a bleeding battle flag. When Roy was just a little tyke, Stick got temporarily famous for putting a DC-3 down on Alligator Alley after both engines flamed out. Deadstick, they called him, then Stick, and it stuck. Almost as legendary was how he persuaded a startled Florida State trooper that he’d been hijacked, dadgum it, Officer, and that the cargo of Jamaican marijuana now burning merrily within the wreckage was not connected to him in any way, shape or form.

What really impressed the good old boys in Glade City, who had financed the venture, was that Stick, barely twenty years of age, an outsider hailing from Mobile, Alabama, had the good sense to torch the aircraft, thereby eradicating not only the evidence but any possible connection to their august selves. What really impressed five-year-old Roy was that the famous pilot actually seemed to like Roy’s father, treating Pappy like an equal and wanting to know about cool and interesting things like running jars of whiskey to the Indians, and did bull gators really mate with their dead prey.

Near as Roy’s been able to determine in the intervening years, Stick wasn’t one of those involved in betraying the old man. One of the very few. Which is precisely why he’s decided to go out on a limb and trust Stick, despite his reputation as a major league juicehead and plane-wrecker, the old DC-3 being the first of many.

They take their drinks, a beer for Roy and two tall triple-vodka tonics for his guest, and retire to the far frontier of the veranda. Few couples having dinner, seated in high-back wicker chairs, around white-clothed tables overlooking the canal. Very civilized. Very Hunt Club, the sleepy afternoon, flooded with dappled sunlight version.

“Yawl still lookin’ out for your brother?” Stick wants to know.

“Dug? Yeah, I guess.”

“That’s a fine thang, takin’ care of family.”

Stick looks around the old club, never raising his shades, a faint smile twitching on his thin chapped lips.

“Same place, different people,” he drawls. “Less puke, too. Old days, somebody’d be whoopin’ over the rail by now, messin’ up their Top-Siders.”

“Yeah,” says Roy. “The good old days.”

Stick smiling with his teeth and drinking gulps of chilled vodka like ice water, waiting for young Roy Whittle to make his move, say his piece.

Roy puts down his empty glass.

“What if I was to help you put your hands on a pretty little thing worth a whole lot of money?” Roy asks, trying to see through the dark glasses, into those bloodshot eyes.

Stick sits up straighter in his high-back wicker chair, caressing his hard little belly. “Pretty little thang? What kind of pretty little thang?”

6. Get This Party Started

Back in civilization, the concrete, steel and palm tree variety, we’re scheduled to meet with a local FBI guy, who is supposed to bring us up to speed. I assume we’ll go to the office, like they do on the TV shows, all those nicely dressed, unfailingly polite agents focused on making us safe, on getting our children back. But Shane directs me to a drowsy shopping mall in a Miami neighborhood called Miramar, where Special Agent Sean Healy eventually finds us staking out a table at a Denny’s. It seems the field office is nearby, but since we’re not on board in an official capacity it’s better we don’t make ourselves known—the way Agent Healy puts it, we’re off the books. Plus he’s dying for a spicy buffalo chicken melt and a side of seasoned fries, and this, he says pointedly, won’t take long.

After the waitress takes his order he goes, “So. You’re Randall Shane, huh? Heard of you,” he adds, without any particular enthusiasm. “You took early retirement, whatever that is.” “Yup,” Shane says, nodding. “That I did.” “Obviously you’ve still got friends in high places.” “What makes you say that?” Shane asks, all innocent. Healy is a good-looking guy in his late-thirties, kind of a hunk, actually, if you think for instance that Josh Hartnett is a hunk. You know, rangy and slim and masculine but somehow boyish, with good bones and really nice hair and plump, kissable lips. Except Healy looks vaguely pissed off, and that makes him unattractive in a faintly disturbing way. Something to do with the fact that his default expression seems to be a sneer, and the sly way he’s clocking my boobs, it makes me form a negative impression of the man inside the body. Nice to look at but definitely a don’t-touch, because the more you see the less you’ll like.

“What makes me say you got pull?” Healy responds, snorting. “Reality makes me say that. Reality is, we got more than two hundred agents actively working cases from here to Key West, and we never work a case without opening a file, not ever, and along comes this former agent, and suddenly we got six people, more you count support, six agents and who knows how many staff gathering information regarding a certain individual, even though no file as been opened and officially we’re not looking at the individual, if you know what I mean.”

Shane says, “I know what you mean.”

“That was a figure of speech. What they call a rhetorical question.”

“Uh-huh. Is this where I’m supposed to apologize for putting you out?” Shane asks, ever so sweetly.

“That would be nice,” says Healy, sipping a tall glass of ice water and eyeing the kitchen door, where his spicy chicken melty thing has yet to emerge.

“I’ll have to work on it,” Shane says. “Get my apology all spiffy. Until then, what can you tell us about Edwin Manning and any connections he may have, financial or otherwise, to this area?”

Healy glances at me. My actual face, not my chest. “Maybe I’d share with you, Mr. Former Agent, but I’m not sharing with a civilian. No way. Not without an official investigation, a file open, on the books.”

Shane has been sort of going along with Healy, feeding the banter, but that changes in an instant. There’s a sudden chill in the air and it’s not the AC at Denny’s. “Mrs. Garner is not a civilian,” he reminds Healy. “She’s the mother of a missing child. She’s the reason I’m here. She’s the reason you’re here. Show some respect.”

Give Healy credit, he recognizes the change in Randall Shane’s attitude and right away he backs off. Probably pretty much the way a lion tamer backs off when the lion makes a certain kind of noise in its great big throat. Like, careful or I’ll get all snarly and have you for breakfast, and we don’t want that, do we?

Healy glances at me, nods. “Right, no disrespect intended. Just for the record, this violates every procedure but what the heck, this is between friends, right?”

“Absolutely,” says Shane.

“Totally,” I say.

“Okay then. Here goes.” Healy produces a small notebook, flips it open. “Item number one. Follow the money. We checked and there have been no recent large transfers of funds from any of Edwin Manning’s private accounts. At least not those we have been able to identify. Whether or not something has been fiddled on the other end, the business end, our forensic accountants can’t make that determination. Lots of money flows in and out of Merrill Manning Capital Fund. Many, many millions. Brokers and bankers buying and selling every day, it will take a while to sort that out, and as you know, former-agent Shane, private investment funds don’t have the same disclosure obligations as publicly traded funds. So, to sum it up, we’ve got nothing showing on the money front, but we can’t be certain nothing is happening.”

“It was a long shot. Thanks for trying.”

Healy flips a page. “Item two, Manning’s interests in South Florida. Substantial. Public record makes him the owner of a brand-new four-million-dollar condo on Brickell Avenue. That’s the financial district, not the beach, by the way. Penthouse with a helo pad, although he doesn’t presently own or lease a helicopter. Also, Merrill Manning Capital Fund is the primary investor in the new Nakosha gaming and casino complex. Can’t be certain the exact dollar figure, but the accountants say the fund has, at minimum, a hundred mil directly invested, and another three hundred leveraged offshore.”

“Indian casino?”

“Native American,” he says, correcting Shane. “Other than gaming rooms at racetracks, all the freestanding casinos in Florida are owned and operated by Native Americans.”

“How come I’ve never heard of the Nakosha?”

Healy shrugs, his handsome eyes slightly hooded. “Because they didn’t get full tribal status until about ten years ago? Because compared to the Seminoles and the Miccosukee they’re a small tribe? I can’t speak to what you don’t know. But what you really do need to know—and take this to the bank—is that the Nakosha have official legal status as a sovereign, domestic dependent nation, and no, repeat, no treaty arrangements with federal enforcement agencies. None whatsoever.”

“You’re serious,” Shane says, looking concerned.

“Deadly,” says Healy. “And since you seem so keen on that bit of information, I might tell you we have enforcement arrangements in place with the Seminole and the Miccosukee, but not the Nakosha. Legally they’re obliged to enforce federal statutes, but as a practical matter the enforcement has been, shall we say, problematic. Bottom line, they run their own show. We do not step over that line—that is, we do not set foot in Indian country—absent a directive from the AG. Who is not, as far as I know, a personal pal of yours.”

“Never met him,” Shane admits.

“So you need to forget the casino connection, stay away from the tribe.”

“I’ll be sure to do that.”

“Do I detect sarcasm?” Healy says, flipping a page in his notebook. “Here’s the good part. My boss had me write it down and instructed me to read it to you, word for word. Ready? Is everybody attentive?”

“We’re listening,” says Shane.

Some guys, the calmer they get, the more you pay attention. Randall Shane is one of those guys. Healy knows it but he can’t help himself, he keeps pushing.

“Here we go.” The agent makes a show of clearing his throat, starts reading. “‘Agents of the FBI and the Justice Department, whether active or retired, have no independent authority on Nakosha tribal lands, and if they do violate Nakosha tribal lands or interfere in Nakosha tribal business, may be found in violation of federal statute and subject to arrest.’” Healy pauses, gives Shane a triumphant smile. “Would you like me to repeat that?”

Shane smiles back. “I’ve got it, Special Agent Healy.”

“Good, because that’s all I’ve got. We’re finished here.” Healy leans back as the waitress delivers his melty thing on a hot plate, with enough fries on the side to stop a healthy young heart. He grunts happily as he reaches for the ketchup, dismissing his audience.

We stand up to leave.

“Oh,” says Healy without lifting his head, “there is one other thing. Edwin Manning is in the house.”

“Yeah? Like Elvis?” Shane responds.

“Exactly like Elvis. Manning arrived in Opa-locka on a Gulfstream charter flight two hours ago, went directly to his condo.”

“Alone?”

Healy shakes his head, slurps a fry. “Guys like that never travel alone. He’s got a security detail with him.”

“Bald head, arm in a sling?”

For the first time the agent looks surprised. “Careful,” he says, chewing with his mouth open. “You got big shot friends can call in favors, I’ll grant you that. But you’re no longer a law enforcement officer, pal. You get in trouble, call the cops. Maybe they’ll call us. We’ll open a file, get this party started.”

Shane herds me to the exit before I can comment on Mr. Healy’s table manners.

7. Stinking Badges

Have I mentioned that my father was a cop? Have I mentioned my father at all? There’s a good reason for that. File it under secrets to be revealed later, if ever. And no, I wasn’t sexually abused, so put that out of your dirty mind. Anyhow, my dad was New York State Police. A trooper. The black knee-high boots, the peaked hat, holstered sidearm, the whole six-foot package designed to impress and intimidate. As a small child I assumed that being a trooper meant he was not allowed to smile, not even when he was off duty. Later, after he was transferred to warrants, he rarely wore the uniform, although it was always ready in the closet, carefully draped in plastic. I was twelve before I realized that “warrants” meant arresting criminals and that he was, in fact, engaged in a dangerous business. Maybe that explained his dark view of the human race, or maybe the sour attitude was just his nature. My mother said he was different when he was young, and he must have been, for her to marry him. It wasn’t because she had to marry him. I came along five years later, at a time, she later confessed, when she was considering divorce. Years after that, after the final ugliness, I asked her what happened, what was wrong with my father, and she shrugged and said he changed. People do, she told me, and not always for the better.

I like to think that all the good in me, whatever warmth and humor I inherited, it all comes from my mother. Plus the little thumbprint dimple on her chin. The one thing I did get from my father is a temper. The difference is, Dad was more or less always in a bad mood, whereas I’m reasonably cheerful most of the time, and it takes a lot to set me off. When I do lose my temper (once or twice a year—really, it’s that rare) I become another person, a darker version of me. As Kelly once observed, after seeing me get ugly with a doctor who hadn’t bothered to read her file, my passive gets aggressive. I seethe, rage, lose control to the point that it scares me. Witnessing it for the first time, people who know me tend to be shocked by the transformation.

Shane gives no indication of shock. Possibly because he saw a hint of it when I vented on Edwin Manning. Whatever, he apparently notices the telltale signs—my face getting red, my eyes getting huge—and he hustles me out of Denny’s before I can explode in the general direction of Special Agent Sean Healy.

“You have to calm down,” he urges, steering me toward the rental car. “Do you need the paper bag? Are you hyperventilating?”

In full fury I yank my arm away and start raging about Healy, his obvious inadequacies, his piglike mental state, his animal rudeness. How it will be his fault if Kelly is dead out there in the stinking swamp, because all the effing FBI cares about is opening official files and scoffing disgusting food and staring at my breasts. How the lowlife bureaucratic bully represents all the stupid and evil things in the world and makes me so angry I want to explode or die. Then I start bawling and banging my hands on the hot fender of the Crown Vic.

In the past, some men have responded to this kind of display by attempting to hold or hug me. Bad idea. Human grenades don’t want to be held. Shane has good instincts. He doesn’t touch, he gets Kleenex from the car, then says, with great confidence, that he’s convinced that my daughter is alive and that we’ll find her.

“That’s what you’re thinking, right?” he wants to know. “That the worst has happened? It was seeing the Everglades. Somehow that made you think she was dead.”

Astonishment makes me stop sobbing and stare at him with watery eyes. How could he possibly know what I was thinking?

“It was the look on your face,” he explains. “Unmistakable.”

“The look?”

“Like you’d hit a wall, suddenly lost hope. I thought a meeting with Special Agent Healy might put things right. My bad.”

“He really is an idiot.”

Shane shakes his head. “I seriously doubt that. There’s a special test for new recruits, it weeds out the idiots.”

“You’re making a joke.”

“A bad one, apparently. Can’t say I warmed up to Mr. Healy, but understand he’s in a difficult position. Guys in the trenches, they always resent it when word comes down to do something off the books. They hate getting their strings pulled. Young guys like Healy, they’re aware the agency has a bad history of being manipulated by the powers that be. He thinks I’m using the agency, trying to get leverage on Edwin Manning for my own purposes, and he’s right.”

“We’re trying to find my daughter.”

Shane nods. “And one of our best sources is Manning, if only we can persuade him to share what he knows, or at least confirm what we suspect. So we are looking for leverage any way we can get it. And absent a ransom call, a witness, or physical evidence of abduction—none of which we have—the agency protocol is to assume Kelly left home of her own free will. ‘Missing of her own volition’ is the phrase.”

“She’d never do that, not without telling me.”

“Agreed, but Healy has convinced himself that we’re misusing agency resources to locate a headstrong teenager who ran off with her boyfriend. He thinks that because ninety-nine times out of a hundred, that’s what happens.” Shane pauses, lets his summary of the situation soak in, then adds with a wry smile, “Plus he’s a mouth-breathing moron who should be crucified.”

I stare at him in disbelief. “Did I say that? Crucified?”

“I believe the phrase was ‘nail the bastard to his stinking badge.’”

“Really?”

Shane glances at the restaurant. “He’ll be licking his plate about now,” he says. “I suggest we leave before he decides to have us for dessert.”

A few minutes later we’ve exited the parking lot unscathed and are blending into traffic. Stinking badge? Where did I get that? Then it hits me. We don’t need no stinking badges, is a phrase Kelly used for a while when she was in the hospital. Something she picked up from TV, or from the oncology nurses, who were always trying to be humorous with the kids, making jokes and feeding them lines as well as medication. Out of the blue Kel would say “we don’t need no stinking badges” in a bad Mexican accent, then erupt in giggles at her own cleverness. I think she was acting out a part, pretending to be someone who wasn’t sick. If you’re laughing you can’t be dying, right?

“Where are we going?”

“The first motel that looks decent,” Shane says. Reacting to my quizzical look, he adds. “We need a base of operations. Somewhere I can recharge my laptop, take a shower, make a few calls, decide what the next move should be.”

“You said you had a plan,” I remind him.

“Seth’s father is in town,” he says. “That changes things.”

“You think he’s here to make a payoff?”

“I do, yes,” Shane admits. “A payoff or some other contact with the abductor. Either way, we have to find out exactly what he’s doing, where he’s going, who he’s seeing. If he finds Seth, we find Kelly.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“It won’t be,” he says. “But Manning in Miami, that’s good. It means he’s convinced that his son is alive.”

We drive for a while. I’ve no idea what road or street we’re on, anything other than a vague sense we’re traveling south in heavy traffic, stoplight to stoplight. I could turn off at any corner, find a motel or hotel easily enough, but something keeps me on the road. Like I’m waiting for a shoe to drop, an idea to reveal itself.

“Where is he staying?” I ask suddenly. “Edwin Manning, where’s his condo?”

“Somewhere on Brickell,” Shane responds warily, giving me a quizzical look. “Healy said Brickell Avenue, the financial district.”

“Will there be motels on Brickell?”

“It’s Miami. There are motels everywhere. But the Brickell area is high-end, very pricey.”

“Whatever. Just get us there,” I suggest. “Tell me the way.”

8. The Man In The Snakeskin Vest

Edwin Manning and his new associates travel the rutted, unpaved road in the muscular glory of a fusion-orange Hummer. An H2 model, so new it’s barely out of the box, with the Vortex V-8, eight-way leather seats, and every accessorized goody known to manly men. Not really Edwin’s kind of transport, he’s basically a Mercedes kind of guy. It was his son Seth who picked out the Hummer, big grin on his face, going, Dad, you need this. It’ll be a chick magnet—next time we’re down we’ll drive it to Key West and see what happens. The boy always trying to fix him up, kidding but serious in his own earnest, well-intentioned way. And Edwin always responding with the same line: if I wanted another wife I’d buy one. Which they both know is bullshit because in all the ways that really count Edwin is still married to Seth’s late mother. Death is not a divorce, not for Edwin.

Next time we’ll drive to Key West. He can hear the boy’s voice and the memory brings with it a kind of emotional pulse, almost electrical in nature. Edwin prays there will be a next time. Prays that he can find a way to free his son, make him whole again. That desire, that overwhelming need, is the only reason he’d ever confine himself in this miserable jouncing tin box with a subordinate like Salvatore Popkin and his low-life associates, whose individual names Edwin has blanked from his mind. These are not people he wants to know, they are underlings he must tolerate under a circumstance.

“Oof! Fuggin’ hum-job!” says one of them, a nervous, grinning goon with stringy, unkempt hair, powerful halitosis, and a nose that evidently demands picking on a regular basis.

True enough, the ruts in the road have been rattling their teeth, but out of loyalty to his son Edwin resents any criticism of the Hummer, or the slang reference to it as a hum-job. What he’d like to do is give Mr. Stink Breath a smack on his thick forehead with something heavy, a lead paperweight perhaps. Instead he orders the driver to slow down. That lasts for a few hundred rattling yards and then inevitably the big V-8 finds its own speed and they keep jouncing.

When one of the morons bumps his head on the roof, Edwin has to remind him to tighten his seat belt. The man looks dumbfounded—the idea obviously never occurred to him—then complies and nods his thanks.

I am surrounded by overgrown children, Edwin decides. Big stupid kids with guns. Wonderful.

After three miles on unpaved, rutted road, they come upon a large sign. A very prominent sign that demands attention.

YOU ARE ENTERING

THE SOVEREIGN TERRITORY OF THE

NAKOSHA NATION.

VISITORS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO CARRY

OR POSSESS FIREARMS OF ANY KIND.

VIOLATORS SUBJECT TO ARREST. NO

EXCEPTIONS.

The Hummer idles, huffing fuel like a juvenile delinquent.

“So what do we do?” Sally Pop wants to know, peering at the sign, which is large, professionally lettered, and illuminated with cove lighting.

“You’re asking me?” Edwin says, turning in the passenger seat to stare at him.

“I mean, is this enforced or what?”

Edwin shrugs. “I assume they’ll pat you down.”

“Can they do that?” Stink Breath wants to know. “I mean can an injun really arrest a white man?”

Edwin stares at the man, who is, in his opinion, barely Caucasian. “They make their own rules,” he says.

“But Florida, anybody can carry a piece,” Stink Breath says. “I looked it up.”

“This isn’t Florida,” Edwin points out. “This is the Nakosha Nation.”

“It’s fucked is what it is.”

“Sally?” Edwin says, exasperated. “Handle this please.”

Sally’s plan is they all get out, open the rear door, and secure the handguns in one of the storage wells, under the peel-up carpet. Four men, eight guns. A nice symmetry, Edwin is thinking. You want to know how many weapons, count the bent noses and multiply by two.

The rutted road continues for another eight miles. For all of it, every shudder and jounce, Edwin ponders on the possibility that the Nakosha have another, even more private access road, and that it is as smooth and well paved as the autobahn. Restricted to tribal members, of course. Each of whom now has a net worth in the multiple millions, no small thanks to him. Men who not so long ago trapped reptiles for food, who rarely operated a flush toilet, these same men now logged on to check their diversified portfolios because Edwin Manning had said yes, why not, by all means let the gambling begin. At the time it seemed a prudent investment for the fund, a business decision based on anticipated return, no more, no less. All of which had led him here, to this road from hell, and to the hell his son was enduring.

Talk about unintended consequences.

The road, hemmed in by dense mangrove for most of its winding length, widens as it approaches the settlement. A dozen or so homes built in the traditional manner, on sturdy stilts that lift each building a good ten feet above the flood-plain. Roofs expertly made from thatches of sable palm fronds. Very picturesque. At one time, Edwin knew, most of the family had lived—barely survived was more like it—in a decrepit trailer village, since leveled and replaced by luxury versions of the traditional chickees, the designs borrowed from, if not actually executed by, the neighboring Seminoles.

The village has no security gate, no obvious security guards, but moments after the Hummer parks in the shadow of the chickee huts, black-haired men emerge as if from nowhere and surround the vehicle. They could be brothers or cousins, all with similar dark eyes, thick hair the color of glittering coal dust, and not a smile among them.

Edwin lowers his window. “Edwin Manning. I’m here to see Joe Lang,” he announces. “I called.”

“No guns.”

“Fine,” Edwin says.

He exits the vehicle, raises his arms, expecting to be patted down. Indicates that Sally and the boys do likewise. Soon they’re all standing around with their arms in the air. The black-haired men stare at them but do not touch.

“No guns.”

“Fine, sure,” says Edwin. “We agree, no guns. We are not carrying firearms. Go ahead, check.”

One of the men, little more than a teenager, really, but stocky and confident, holds out his hand and says, “Give me the keys.”

Edwin says, “Somebody give him the keys, please!”

With key in hand the youth goes directly to the back of the vehicle, opens the rear door, lifts the rug, and exposes the assortment of handguns stashed in the storage well. He looks at Edwin, just the trace of a satisfied smirk starting to show. “The penalty for possession of firearms is ten years, unless the council decides to show mercy.”

“Fuggin’ hell!” blurts Stink Breath. “Are they crazy?”

The stocky teenager shrugs his indifference. “We passed that law because white men kept coming on our land. Jacking gators, running dope, distilling alcohol, all those crazy-ass white man activities. Only an idiot would insult us by ignoring the law.”

“I freely admit these men are idiots,” Edwin says, “and I’m an idiot for employing them. Take the guns. Now, may I please see Joe Lang? It’s a matter of life and death or I wouldn’t be here.”

A voice comes down from above.

“Up here,” it says.

A man in a snakeskin vest looks down from the porch of a newly built chickee, gestures to Edwin. “Just you. Rico? See the others get something cold to drink.”

Edwin climbs the steps, moves into the shade under the thatched roof of the wraparound porch. “Joe,” he says. “Thank you for seeing me. Nice place you got here.”

“Sit.”

Edwin knows better than to offer to shake hands. Nakosha tribal members sometimes embrace, but never acquired the habit of gripping hands, and tolerate the practice only out of politeness. The man in the snakeskin vest pours iced tea from a heavy glass pitcher dewed with moisture. He’s of slender, wiry build, fifty or so, with creased skin the color of saddle leather. Bare chested under the vest, and his faded jeans are fastened at the waist by a hand-tooled leather belt with a solid gold buckle cast in the shape of an alligator jawbone.

“You like the vest?” he asks, admiring his own garment. “Rattlesnake skin, imported from the Philippines. Only rattlers around here are farm raised. They sell ‘em in the casino gift shop. Five grand. The vest, not the rattlers.”

Edwin waits, sips his iced tea, well aware that the man in the vest, like his brothers and cousins, does not like to be rushed into the meat of conversation. Eventually he nods his assent, invites Edwin to begin the real discussion.

“You know about Ricky?” Edwin begins. “What he’s done, what he’s doing, what he wants?”

“We do not speak of that person. He is dead.”

“I understand,” Edwin says, “but if he doesn’t get what he wants he’s going to kill my son.”

“The person is crazy. He is not Nakosha.”

“He was. He’s still your nephew. I need your help, Joe. Surely you and your family owe me that much.”