Off the Chart Page 23

  “I can forge his goddamn signature. I got people working for me that’ll take care of it. Fuck him.”

  “You need him alive, Vic. Don’t you? Think about it.”

  Thorn could feel Vic’s grip relax by some tiny measure.

  “All right,” he said. “For you. All right.”

  Vic was still looking at his sister as she pried the knife from his hand. Then she took it across the room and set it on the dresser. Vic released Thorn’s scrotum and stood up and rubbed his palms hard against his pants. His face was a ghastly gray and his mouth quivered like a child about to break into a wail.

  “Okay,” he said. “Now get the fuck out of my sight, the both of you. When you decide you want that little girl to live, then you come back here ready to sign those papers. But believe me, Thorn, the next time I see you, you better be down on your motherfucking knees.”

  Twenty

  Drenched in sweat from the two long hikes across the parking lot to his car, Sugarman slammed the back door of his old Ford and turned and trotted back for the third and what he hoped was the final trip to the checkout desk of the Key Largo Library.

  But as he approached the desk, just as Jill and he had feared, the head librarian, Ruth Mercer, materialized from her office to see who this man was who was raiding their natural history section.

  “It’s a project I’m working on,” Sugarman told her as he began to pile the remaining books into his arms.

  “We have checkout limits, Mr. Sugarman. Didn’t Jill tell you?”

  “I waived the limits, Ruth,” Jill Johnson said. “It’s a very important case.”

  “A detective case, I suppose?”

  “That’s right,” Sugar said, and added two more to the pile that was propped against his chest and came nearly to his chin.

  Ruth Mercer brought her glasses down from her hair and locked them into place against her nose and studied the titles of his books, then shook her head.

  Jill came around from behind the desk and said, “It’s about what happened on the yacht. Andrew Markham, the transmigration man.”

  “I see,” the librarian said. “So on that basis you waived our ten-book limit?”

  “I’ll have them back by the end of the week.”

  “Why don’t you just back your car up to the front door, Mr. Sugarman, bring your wheelbarrow in, and help yourself?”

  “Oh, Ruth, really. Some of these books haven’t been checked out in years.”

  Sugarman settled the final one under his chin and turned and headed for the door. Ruth Mercer shadowed him across the library.

  “All right,” she said. “But never again. Ten is the limit. Is that clear?”

  “Clear,” Sugar said.

  She sighed and turned and marched back to her forlorn station in the rear of that big quiet room.

  Sitting in his car in the Kmart parking lot, Sugar used his cell phone to call Jackson Means. He got lucky and found him home on Saturday afternoon, watching what sounded like a baseball game. Probably tilted back in his lounge chair with a beer and chips. Wife and three kids off somewhere.

  Sugar got the preliminaries out of the way in five seconds, explained what he needed to know, and answered Jackson’s question with, “Because you’re the only guy I know in telecommunications.”

  “Christ, I’m a lineman, Sugar. I climb the poles. If you want to give that a bunch of syllables, okay. But basically I’m an electrician.”

  “But you know somebody I can call.”

  He thought about it while baseball fans cheered in the background. Not a home run, but more than a single.

  “Claudia Shelley.” His voice was strained. “She’s up in Miami, used to be a district manager for BellSouth security operations. Now she’s gone private. Try her.”

  “Use your name?”

  “I don’t know,” Jackson said. Then quiet for a long moment. “We had a thing, but it was a while ago. She might remember. I’d be interested to know if she does.”

  From memory Jackson gave him the woman’s home number and Sugar thanked him and hung up and called and a woman snapped it up on the second ring with a curt, “What is it?”

  Music in the background. Classical piano.

  Sugarman watched a family he knew coming out of the Kmart with arms full of shopping bags, two young boys. The father nodded at Sugar. Five or six years back the guy had spent six months in jail for blacking both his wife’s eyes, knocking out two front teeth. Sugar had put him there. Things looked okay now, but you never knew.

  “Claudia Shelley?”

  “If this is a sales call, I don’t take them at home.”

  Tough voice. A woman doing work on the weekend, don’t bother.

  “My little girl’s been kidnapped.” Then in a rush he explained the situation. Video camera, satellite phone. A jungle maybe a thousand miles away. He wanted to do a call trace. How hard was it?

  Claudia paused, turned down the piano music, came back, and said, “Do I know you?”

  Sugarman gave her Jackson’s name and she was silent.

  “Look, this is urgent,” Sugar said. “I’ve got to know if this can be done. Technically, I mean. First if it’s possible, and if it is, who to call. I thought it’d be quicker to talk to somebody in the private sector than go through cop channels. I used to be in law enforcement and I know things can get bogged down. Even emergencies.”

  “Your daughter is kidnapped and you haven’t notified the police?”

  “It’s complicated,” he said.

  “Complicated?”

  Sugarman was getting impatient, the woman wanting too much information, but he hit her with it anyway, to get her back on track, show her the seriousness.

  “A branch of government might be involved in holding her.”

  “Oh, come now. I very much doubt that, Mr. Sugarman.”

  “Listen, Ms. Shelley, I just want some facts, if it can be done. Who to call.”

  “This is not what I do, Mr. Sugarman. We’re a security firm. We wire computer networks, build firewalls, write antivirus code.”

  “I guess I was misinformed.”

  A man dressed as a clown was standing outside of the Kmart handing out red balloons. Jingling a pot for donations.

  Sugarman heard Claudia Shelley sigh. He was half a second from hanging up on her when she said, “Satellite phone transmissions are actually fairly easy to monitor, compared to wireless. Communications satellites track users’ locations by tracing their SIM, their subscriber identity module, every time they turn on their phone.”

  “So it can be done, it’s easy.”

  “Not so fast,” she said. “No satellite phone company is going to open up its accounts for a private citizen. They’ll listen to law enforcement, consider requests, but unless they already have a working relationship with the FBI, they’ll probably require a subpoena. So you need to get somebody official involved. And I can tell you firsthand, any federal help is going to be hard. Oversight on domestic telecom issues is with the FBI, and they have the equipment to triangulate cell phone towers and home in on a particular user.

  “But if it’s international then it becomes a CIA issue. Their intel people are set up to analyze, cross-reference, or listen to transmissions. They can access Echelon; it’s a system nobody wants to talk about it, but it’s there. A way of intercepting data or voice, tower to tower, microwave links, phone cables, Internet backbone networks. It’s operated by the NSA. Spies, counterintelligence. Tracking drug guys and terrorists. Then they got black box data sifters they use to tap into e-mail, or video chats, like you’re describing.”

  “Listen, I’m sorry,” Sugarman said. “I don’t really need an education on this, just yes or no, can it be done?”

  “Like I said, yeah, it can be done, but only if you can clear the legal hurdles. And if the agency has the budgetary flexibility to work on a domestic abduction case. First you got to make your case, get somebody jazzed enough to take the time. But yeah, they can intercept satell
ite phone transmissions, pinpoint locations. Put a cruise missile on the goddamn spot if they want to.”

  Sugarman was quiet, holding back the sudden swell of anger.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “That came out wrong.”

  “It’s okay.”

  When she spoke again her voice had softened, but it was still a technical problem for her, not getting emotionally hooked.

  “Do you play golf with a U.S. Senator by any chance?”

  “Not lately.”

  “Then it could take weeks,” she said. “That’s been my experience, just to get in the front door.”

  She paused, this time for several seconds. When she spoke again there was an undertone of sadness, but she was trying to hide it by shifting into professional mode.

  “Your situation certainly warrants a strong, immediate response from the authorities, Mr. Sugarman. The proper action on your part is to call the local FBI and let them respond. But if it were my child, to be absolutely frank, and knowing what I do about the legal difficulties, I’d pursue other avenues. Pay the ransom, hire a private investigator. I could give you the names of people in the field.”

  “I am one,” Sugarman said. “A private investigator.”

  “You are?”

  He said yes, yes, he was.

  “Well, then there’s your answer. Given our present geopolitical situation and the huge demands on tracking systems, call tracing on this level would require substantial influence. I doubt they’d pick it up as a priority, move it to the top of the stack.”

  “They could do it, but they wouldn’t, not for a little guy.”

  “They couldn’t refuse. You’re a citizen; it’s a serious crime. They’d put a man on it, maybe two. I’m sorry. That’s just my opinion. You should go on, call the FBI field office, prove me wrong.”

  One of the balloons had escaped the grasp of a young boy. It bobbled into the sky, then was scooped up by a current of air and sailed off to the west. The boy began to wail.

  Sugarman thanked her for her time. She was quiet for a second, then in a different voice, her real one probably, she said, “Please tell Jackson hello for me. And that I’m sorry. He’ll understand.”

  One more quick call to Frank Sheffield at home. He came on with a brisk, “Okay, okay, I’m out the door.”

  “Frank? Frank Sheffield?”

  Sugar told him who it was, gave him the three-sentence version.

  “That thing in Key Largo? The yacht with the con man psychic?”

  “Right.”

  “I thought everybody went overboard.”

  “I’ve been talking to her, Frank. She’s alive.”

  Sheffield was quiet for so long, Sugarman was about to ask if he was still there when he said, “Look, I’m on my way out of town, Sugar. Got two weeks in Alaska with my fiancée and her son, combination cruise and fishing trip. Plane’s leaving tonight at eight. We got to run around, do a few things before we go.”

  Sugar said okay, he understood.

  “You actually talked to her?”

  “Video cam. I talked to her, saw her, too.”

  “Goddamn.” Frank thought about it a minute, figuring. “She’s going to call back when?”

  “Six,” Sugar said. “That’s what we agreed on.”

  “Give me your address. I remember the mile marker but not the street.”

  Sugarman gave him the address, a couple of landmarks on the highway.

  “What about your cruise?”

  “I’ll be at your place at six, plenty of time to get back to MIA before the plane. Hannah will understand.”

  “Maybe you should pass this on to somebody else,” Sugarman said. “You’re in a hurry.”

  “I got a kid in my group who’s up on all the latest gizmos. I’ll give him a call, see if he’ll ride along. We’ll take a look, see if there’s something to do.”

  “It’s a satellite phone,” Sugar said. “It could be difficult.”

  “Be there at six.” And he hung up.

  Twenty-One

  With Vic glaring from the front porch and Marty beside him with his arms crossed over his heavy chest, Anne and Thorn crossed the yard and headed out to the front gate. Thorn half-expected Vic to shoot him in the back or at least for one of them to come running and drag Anne Bonny back. But he was wrong.

  The Hell’s Conchs seemed to have taken the afternoon off, so Anne and Thorn pushed through the gate and walked briskly to his car and got in. Thorn started it and blew out a breath that he’d been holding for a while.

  “Thank you,” he said as he pulled the Beetle onto the overseas highway. “That was damn close.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “Did he hurt you?”

  “Maybe a nick,” Thorn said. “And I might have a little trouble peeing for a while. All the sphincters down there are locked shut.”

  “Can we go to your place?”

  He looked over.

  “Don’t worry, Thorn, I won’t jump you. I’ll sleep in the hammock tonight if you don’t kick me out before then. I’m thinking of taking the cash and heading off. But I don’t know. I guess I just need to take a deep breath, figure out what I’m doing.”

  Her electric eyes were fully charged.

  “Yeah,” he said. “A deep breath sounds good.”

  She looked out the windshield at nothing.

  “Listen, Thorn. I need to get this in the open.”

  “Okay.”

  There was a spatter of his blood on the lap of her khaki shorts. She scratched at it with a nail.

  “Do you know anything about my recent history?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She watched the shops of Islamorada crawl by. The island had recently seceded from Monroe County and was turning into a more upscale version of its former self. Same shops, better facades. Same motels, higher prices.

  “After you and I split up,” she said, “I was alone for a long time. I guess I was a little vulnerable, off-balance. Then this man came along.”

  Thorn was silent. They were following a gold-and-green motor home from Canada that was towing a color-coordinated SUV. He watched the big vehicle carefully.

  “And by the way,” she said, “I’m sorry about how I acted that last night. Walking out like that, no explanation.”

  “I assumed it had to do with that story you told about your family. We weren’t ready for that.”

  He could feel her looking at him, but Thorn was concentrating on the motor home, driving carefully, keeping a safe cushion between him and the Canadian, not sure how good his reflexes were at the moment, the twin wounds in his gut throbbing again, a dull ache growing in his testicles.

  “It was the story, yeah,” she said. “But what do you mean, not ready?”

  “Too much honesty, too soon.”

  “Oh.” Anne went back to her window.

  Thorn glanced over and saw a single glistening track on her cheek. He reached out for the hand balled against her tanned thigh and she relaxed the fist and let him hold it for a moment.

  “That story I told you,” she said, with her eyes still on the bars and T-shirt shops, tackle stores. “I lied.”

  Thorn tugged his hand away to shift gears, then drove on in silence.

  “Most of it was the truth,” she said, facing forward. “Ninety percent. Just the ending was a lie. I was trying it out on you, I guess. I wanted to see if I could tell the whole story to someone, tell it how it truly happened. You seemed honest and straight. And I’d heard things about you, how you had plenty of your own secrets, and because of that I didn’t think my pitiful story would bother you too much.

  “But when I got to the end, I just couldn’t do it. So, I lied. That’s the reason I left that night, why I wouldn’t talk to you again. I was ashamed, Thorn. I poisoned everything, between us, and inside of me. Poisoned it with a fucking lie. Made it worse than it already was.”

  The motor home pulled off into a gas station and Thorn pushed the ancient VW up to the spee
d limit and just beyond. He didn’t feel the need to speak. She was doing pretty well without him.

  “You want to hear the true ending, Thorn? How it really was that night?”

  “Okay.”

  “I know it’s too late,” she said, “to fix things.”

  “Fix what things?”

  “I mean telling it straight this late in the game won’t do anything. Not really. I don’t believe that. Despite what I said to Vic, I think there’s some things that won’t mend once they’re broken. The things that hold people together.”

  “I hope you’re wrong about that.”

  She reset herself in that saggy bucket seat, turning to face him. Her sleeveless blouse was dark blue and printed with yellow alamanda blossoms. The top two buttons were undone and the gusts from her open window ballooned the shirt and one dark nipple was briefly exposed.

  He directed his eyes back to the road.

  “Do you remember that story, Thorn? Is it still clear in your head?”

  “Oh, yeah, it’s clear,” he said. “Very clear.”

  “All the pirate crap was true, the schooner in the yard, the way my mother was crazy and drove the rest of us crazy. My daddy, smalltime drug runner. An ignorant country boy. Everything was accurate, except what happened out on the porch at the end.”

  “The shootings.”

  “That’s right. The shootings.”

  She wiped away the damp streak.

  “It wasn’t Vic who went out the door when the shooting started. It was me. Mother had already shot Sherman, the younger Woodson, and the older brother, Al, had put two bullets into her with his pistol and she was lying there bleeding, still alive, making awful noises. And Dad was there with his hands in the air, trying to bargain with the Woodson boy. His wife dying at his feet and he’s telling this redneck that it’s all going to work out okay, they’ll bury young Sherman and then they’ll bury my mother, and no one needed to know the difference. Get right back to business. Saying he was even willing to take a cut in pay to make things right. And then, I guess to seal the deal, he said he knew Al Woodson had his eye on me. Liked the way I was built. And then my daddy said Al had his blessing, anything he wanted to do, take me now, if it suited his fancy.”