Trapped (47 page)

can see is the green, up close and blurry, and it takes tremen-

dous effort to keep her eyes open, so mostly she concentrates

on floating. Also on breathing. She reminds herself that it is

important to keep breathing even though the air doesn’t taste

good. Breathing isn’t about taste, silly, it’s something you

have to do whether you want to or not.

Remember to breathe. In, out, keep it going.

On some level Kelly knows that she has been drugged.

Partly the recent memory of what the animal tranquilizer did

to her the first time, there on the airstrip where all this began,

when the dart was fired into her abdomen. This time the

needle came from behind, wielded by the wild man with the

crazy-looking shotgun. Arnold Schwarzenegger had a gun

like that in some old movie.
Terminator? Predator?
One of

those. So maybe this is dream about a movie and she’s really

home in her bed experiencing that heavy, paralyzed sensa-

tion that sometimes happens in a dream. Where you want to

move or scream but you can’t and it isn’t until you wake up

that you fully comprehend what happened.

A voice comes through the palm fronds. A mad voice that

insinuates itself into her waking nightmare.

“See you later, alligator,” says the voice, inches from her

ear. “No, no, that’s not right. What I mean to say, see the al-

ligator later. Which you will, I promise.”

The mad voice laughs and drifts away.

Kelly wills herself to wake up. If only she could scream

she could wake herself up.

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17. And Then The Boss Is Gone

“Good morning, Daddy, how you doing?”

Ricky, looking down at his father’s withered body, savors

the irony. One of his first acts as tribal president was to des-

ignate a percentage of gaming revenue to the construction of

a new Elder Care & Hospice Facility, located right here on

the rez. He made it happen, made sure it was done right,

sparing no expense in either the construction phase or the

staffing. The individual suites are large, airy and comfortable,

bearing little or no resemblance to a hospital room. There are

no locks on the doors and each unit has a screened porch with

a spectacular view of the Everglades. All in all it’s about as

nice as such a place can ever be, considering that many of

the residents are either dying or demented, or both.

Tito Lang scores on both counts, his liver slowly failing,

his brain irreversibly damaged by a thirty-year immersion

in alcohol.

“Look who’s here, Daddy. Your grandchildren! Did you

ever meet them? I been trying to recall, but it seems like

maybe you were already too far gone. Doesn’t matter,

today we make up for lost times. Say hello to your grand-

father, children. Daddy, this is Alicia, Reya and Tyler. See

how they’re all dressed up? They’re going to a costume

party. Little Tyler, he really wanted to be a pirate but I said,

no no, children, no more pirates or princesses, no more

dressing up as white people. Today you dress up as

Nakosha people.”

Ricky smiles down at his children, who flit around in such

a way that it’s difficult to see all three at once.

“Kids, do me a favor, go play on the porch. Your grampa

Tito and I need to have a grown-up conversation. Alicia,

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honey? Don’t let Tyler go outside, I want you all together,

okay? For the party later, that’s why. Good girl. Go on,

shoo.”

Ricky shaking his head and smiling, pleased that his father

has finally had a chance to see his beautiful grandchildren.

From the scent of shampoo and soap, he knows his father has

already had his morning bath, and that the hospice aids will

not be back to check on him for at least twenty minutes.

Plenty of time for a conversation.

“I been thinking, Daddy. That’s what’s wrong with me,

too much thinking. All the time, day and night, awake,

asleep, always thinking. Is that why you drank so much, to

keep from thinking?”

His father’s eyes skid away, unable to hold focus for long.

The diagnosis, rendered months ago, was unequivocal.

Neuronal damage to the cerebral cortex with serious cogni-

tive impairment, resulting in a borderline vegetative state.

Nominally conscious or wakeful, but no longer able to form

or hold thoughts, and verbally unresponsive on all levels.

Tito Lang, once a big talker, speaks no more. His aware-

ness comes and goes. He likes it when the nurses sponge him,

and will swallow soft food spooned into his mouth. When

spoken to, his eyes at first respond, then quickly drift away.

The lights are on, dimly, but he’s rarely at home in any mean-

ingful way. Perversely his heart remains strong. No one has

been able to say how long he will linger in his present con-

dition. Could be weeks, months, maybe longer.

“What have I been thinking about?” says Ricky, sitting on

the edge of his father’s bed. “I’m glad you asked. I’ve been

thinking about the old times. Before I was born, before you

were born. The long-ago times, and how our people lived

back then. You ever think about that? Yeah?

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359

“You’re right, Daddy. In those days when people got old,

too old to contribute to the community, they went away.

They got left behind. The people would give them a weapon

and maybe a little water and a blanket, and the people would

move on, leaving the elder behind. Sounds cruel but it ain’t,

not really. It’s natural. My guess, it didn’t take long. And

next year when the people came back they’d gather the

bones and bury them in a big jar. They call it an ossuary.

That’s the white word. We’ve forgotten the Nakosha word,

isn’t that sad?”

Out on the screened-in porch the children are playing

cowboys and Indians. Despite his native costume, naughty

Tyler is pretending to be the cowboy, which means he gets

to chase his big sisters around, shooting them with his make-

believe gun. They indulge him, being sweet girls. Look how

they pretend to die, writhing on the floor. Ricky smiles in-

dulgently. They’re good kids, he’s lucky to have them.

“You know what, Daddy? Lately I’ve been thinking

maybe it would be better if
all
of us got left behind. All the

Nakosha people. Our cousins and brothers, all of them. Time

has come to let the other people move on, leave us behind.

That would be the kindest thing. No more fighting, no more

betrayal, no more pain, no more suffering. Wouldn’t that be

better? We’ll all of us go where the spirits go, and we’ll be

together. The world will be clean and new and it will last

forever.”

In the end, after the conversation is over and Tito agrees,

Ricky uses the pillow.

Sally Pop finds it more than a little weird to be back on

the reservation, hanging out with so many cops and federal

agents. Some are polite, some choose to aggressively ignore

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him. Mostly they’re focused on coordinating the search for

Mr. Manning’s son and the pretty lady’s daughter, so he tries

not to take offense.

Back in Jersey he avoided cops and Feds like the plague.

Not because he was in any great danger of arrest or prose-

cution, but because guys in his situation were expected to

avoid the company of cops and Feds. Tough guys. Guys of

a certain size and heft, useful in casino establishments as a

kind of enforcement decoration. Okay, sometimes he got a

little rough, maybe accidentally fractured a limb or kneecap

while encouraging payment obligations. But really it was all

an act, part of the routine that kept him employed. Act a

certain way, talk a certain way, they’d fall for it because he

looked the part, courtesy of not being able to avoid a punch

in the boxing ring.

Sally thinks of it like the old joke about not being a doctor

but playing one on TV. He’s not really a tough guy, but he

plays one in real life.

Edwin Manning, being a very smart dude, seems to have

figured this out. He’s dismissed the others and is no longer

relying on Sally for security—who needs private security

when you’re surrounded by cops and Feds?—but has decided

to keep him around to serve as an extra pair of ears. Sally

performs that function quite willingly—the pay is still good,

and he likes being around all the action. So when Manning

calls down from the chickee hut—the official visitor’s hut,

whatever that means—Sally obediently trots up the steps,

finds his boss standing at a railing, staring out at the nasty

big wet grassland or mosquito breeding ground or whatever.

A freaking swamp is what it is.

“Coffee?” asks Sally. “They brought in a fresh urn.”

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361

Manning declines the offer. Looks like hell, his eyes sunk

so deep in his head it’s a wonder he can see. Still eating

himself up over the decision to level with the Feds, admit his

boy got snatched. For what it’s worth, Sally thinks he made

the right choice. When you’re dealing with Indians, espe-

cially ones who confiscate your guns, sometimes the best

thing is to call in the cavalry.

“What are they saying?” Manning wants to know.

“Nothing new. They got the chopper thing going, they’re

hoping to spot something from the air, just like yesterday.”

What they’re calling the “forward deployment area” is in

fact a couple of portable trailers, with room in front for an

improvised helicopter pad. The choppers can touch down and

pick up, but refueling has to be done off the rez, at the Dade-

Collier Training airport, north of the Everglades.

The whole business of helicopters is way too noisy, Sally

has decided. So far lots of flash but no result.

A resupply station has been set up for the ground-based

effort. The “boots on the ground” troops. Since the area is far

too large for any generalized search, the volunteers have

been divided into units and are presently tramping through

likely quadrants, as directed by the tribal police in coordina-

tion with federal agencies. Checking out various hunting and

fishing camps, other places Ricky Lang has been known to

frequent, as well as so-called anomalies identified from the

air, which have so far turned out to be things like animal car-

casses.

Basically everyone is guessing, from what Sally can tell.

“No word on Lang?” Manning wants to know.

“Nothing since he burned the airplane.”

“I don’t give a shit about the plane,” Manning says, gri-

macing. “Enough about the plane! They got five hundred

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people out there and they can’t locate one man? What the hell

are they doing?”

“They’ll find him, sir.”

“Based on what? Putting on a big show? What if he’s

already dead?”

Sally blanches. “Excuse me, sir?”

“Ricky Lang. He’s off his rocker, maybe he killed himself.

What if he killed himself and left Seth out there to die? No

water, no food. Exposed to the elements. Have they consid-

ered that? Have they?”

Sally gets why Healy and Salazar and the other agents are

avoiding Edwin Manning. Ostensibly they’re supposed to be

informing him of every step of the investigation, but in prac-

tical terms the little guy goes ballistic when they bring him

anything but good news. Questioning their competence, in-

sulting them and so on, but all along really second-guessing

himself. Plus just being on the rez seems to piss him off, since

he considers himself betrayed by the tribe.

Which is why Sally decides not to mention the dogs.

Waiting in line for coffee as the sun came up, he heard this

one guy let it slip they had corpse-sniffing dogs ready to go.

Sally figures Mr. Manning doesn’t need to know about the

dogs. Not at this particular juncture.

“I heard one of the agents say they get good results eighty

percent of the time,” Sally says. “Those are pretty good

odds.”

“Oh yeah? It’s bullshit. In a situation like this there are

no odds. They either find him alive or they don’t. So please

don’t bring me any more happy talk, or stuff you overheard.

Just facts.”

“Yeah, of course,” Sally says affably. “You sure you don’t

want coffee? It ain’t half-bad.”

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363

“No.”

“How about some pastry. They got this Cuban stuff is

really tasty. You gotta eat something, boss. Keep up your

energy.”

The bodyguard’s hand instinctively slaps at a particularly

nasty mosquito feasting on the back of his neck, and is

startled to find some sort of dart protruding. He’s thinking

he needs to say something, warn Mr. Manning, but the

thought never triggers the words because a great, warm

numbness flows out from the dart, paralyzing his jaw.

Funny, he has no recollection of falling but there he is on