I can go without sleep for a couple of days, if I work out. But I hadn’t had time to do much of either in the last forty-eight hours. It felt good to be outside, alone and running in the Gulf-dense night. So good, I didn’t want to stop. Running is the best way I know to scope out an area. I picked up the pace-my way of making the run last-and mentally logged details that might be useful later.
Falcon Landing was a well-planned package: multimillion-dollar estates on ten-acre parcels, homes that looked as if they’d been layered from a tube of chocolate icing. There was a country club, clay courts, a banquet hall and restaurant that was open but not busy on this balmy, blustery January eve.
Every structure was efficiently screened by ficus or hibiscus hedges. Green zones were spacious, and there were trails and tree canopy enough to create the illusion of a Caribbean island retreat. The exception was the western edge of the property where more than a dozen small jets and prop planes were hangered on an FAA-licensed airstrip-seventy-two hundred feet long, according to signage. Members only, night traffic by appointment, corporate pilots must register with the attendant at Falcon Landing.
I wondered how tight airstrip security was.
The Myles estate was beachside, the house not visible from the road. It was shielded by islands of foliage: helicoids, birds of paradise, citrus and frangipani. There was a twelve-foot gate, wrought iron on electric tracks, with a horse-sculpture cap and a small brass plaque: SHELTER COTTAGE.
We’ll see…
I checked the street before ducking into the shadows where there was a chain-link fence. After dropping to the other side, I waited two minutes in case there was a perimeter alarm or a Doberman standing watch.
The house wasn’t a cottage, it was a massive three-story mansion with two-story wings at each end.
As I approached, I could hear the drumming of waves on the beach and the compressor kick of an air conditioner. Even on a flawless winter evening, the gated community types avoid contact with the reality of Florida… except for someone moving on the upper floor of the south wing.
I crouched and watched a woman step out onto a balcony. The moon was three days before full, not bright because of clouds but bright enough. Nelson’s wife? Yes. She was too full-bodied in her silken robe to be the daughter.
Connie Myles walked to the railing, listening to the thumping bass of New Age rock in the room behind her, then lit a cigarette. No… a joint. I had observed Tomlinson’s ceremonial machinations often enough to know. She inhaled several times, then pirouetted in a solitary dance, arms thrown wide, like Wendy in Peter Pan yearning to fly.
I remembered the photo I’d seen in Myles’s office of the wife who had appeared lost and haunted, shrinking ever smaller into the background of her family members’ lives. Perhaps I was mistaken. Perhaps the woman was simply stoned. For her sake, I hoped it was true.
When she finished smoking and had locked the French doors behind her, I worked my way past a tennis court and a small empty stable to the back lawn. The main house looked deserted, but there was activity in the north wing.
I crossed to the patio, where there was a pool house, a guest cottage and a landscaped deck with a tiki hut and lounge chairs. The pool was unlit, a graphite mirror beneath moon and stars. Lights were on in the kitchen… and Nelson appeared. I watched him open a fresh bottle of scotch and pour a drink.
The man was wearing a dress shirt that would fit if he gained fifteen pounds, suggesting recent weight loss. That, coupled with the scotch, meshed with what Roxanne had told me.
“Two weeks ago,” she’d said, “Nels went off the deep end. It started with a phone call-that much I know for sure. But he wouldn’t tell me what it was about.”
Nelson was going to tell me.
At the edge of the patio was a metal trash can. I imagined the gonging sound the lid would make if raccoons dumped the thing. It was a fail-safe call to duty for a man enjoying a whiskey glow. But the wife worried me, even though she was stoned and insulated by ten thousand square feet of stucco and furniture.
Instead, I scouted the side of the house, where I found a Range Rover parked outside the five-car garage. When I saw the New York plates and a trailer hitch, I felt a hunter’s rush… until I did the math. Even nonstop, the drive from the Hamptons would’ve taken more than twenty hours. It was a different Range Rover.
Will Chaser wasn’t here, unless they’d boxed him into one of those private jets-it was possible.
I wanted to discuss that with Myles, too.
Using my ASP Triad light, I settled on a place to hide, then checked the interior of the vehicle. It was the big luxury Rover, with navigation, and a security system that was sufficiently sensitive. Headlights and horn blared an alert when I forced a burglar’s shim through the door seal.
When Nelson came hurrying out, drink in hand, I waited until he was returning to the house before I surprised him.
I used duct tape, mouth and hands. Appropriate, I hoped. I got a good look at the Skull and Bones ring Myles wore, as I took care to do a professional job with the tape, thumbs out, fingers not locked.
The ring was similar to others I had seen.
Nelson Myles didn’t double the family fortune or run a successful stable or get his jet rating by being easily bullied, so I didn’t expect him to go all weepy once he recovered from the shock of being hijacked in his own vehicle. But I also didn’t anticipate his detached reaction after I’d parked, headlights off, parking lights on, and torn the tape from his mouth.
He said, “Let’s cut to the chase and save us both some time. How much do you want?”
Extortion, the first thing to come to his mind. He was drunk, I realized, in the first articulate stages of a scotch bender. I didn’t reply.
After a moment, he said, “Talk to me. I have more money than patience. Come up with a figure. If it’s reasonable, I won’t get the police involved. It has nothing to do with keeping my word, or any of that noble bullshit. I have too much on my plate right now to deal with police. So your timing couldn’t be better.” He paused, suspicious. “Or maybe someone tipped you off. Was it a woman?”
That was unexpected. He was thinking of Roxanne-also a surprise. Well… he knew her better than I did.
I sat looking at him, letting my eyes adjust to the dash lights, hearing the vehicle’s cooling engine and the wind in melaleuca trees outside my open window. The man was working his lips, trying to get rid of tape residue, but didn’t offer eye contact. I was a hired hand, beneath his station-my impression.
He said, “With a phone call, I can have forty thousand cash within half an hour, anyplace you say. If you want more, we’ll have to wait until the banks open. That’s risky, in my opinion. More chance of something going wrong. But it’s your decision.”
After two minutes of silence, he added, “Personally, I’d take the cash.”
After another minute, he said, “Think it over.”
After another thirty seconds, he said, “While I’m waiting, open the door, I have to pee.”
I was going through the fanny pack, letting him watch from the corner of his eye as I removed a lab towel, the ASP light, then surgical gloves, finally a pistol.
The pistol was a recent acquisition. It was a. 32 caliber Seecamp, a precision-made firearm not much larger than a candy bar. I’m not a gun aficionado, so I had done a month of research and fired a lot of weapons before deciding that the Seecamp was the finest phantom pistol on the tactical market.
Close my fingers around the little gun, it disappeared in my hand
… phantomlike.
I did that now, closing my hand, then opening it, letting Myles fixate on the gun. He was a shrewd guy. The workmanship, the articulate density of stainless steel, were more persuasive than any threat I could make. A weekend thug or a drug hustler would flash a big, showy knife, not a scalpel. Nelson Myles was looking at a scalpel.