Pirate banners, showing death’s-heads of various designs, marked the entrance to the little kitchen area, where there was a propane stove and oil lanterns. There were skull-and-crossbones symbols on the mantelpiece and a row of Indian artifacts: flint arrowheads, a withered quiver of arrows, a flint knife, an unstrung bow and more than a dozen figurines-cast in plaster, carved from stone-of a dour, flat-faced Indian.
Nelson Myles may be wealthy, but he has bourgeois taste. Or… perhaps this is a clubhouse used by children.
Because there was a canoe, two kayaks and a basketball hoop outside, that seemed plausible until Farfel considered several paddles, not for boats but the sort college boys used to spank with. The paddles were covered with more cryptic symbols. There was also a row of beer mugs engraved with such things as MAGOG, SUPERMAN, GOG.
American children don’t use paddles or drink beer.
In a glass-sided box, near the fireplace, were bones, which most people couldn’t identify but Farfel could. He’d seen them earlier so didn’t bother to look. There were human femurs, a partial set of human ribs, carpal remnants and finger segments from a human hand. There were also two ancient-looking skulls.
A section of the parietal bone was missing from one of the skulls. Teeth were missing from the lower mandibles of both.
Myles is a serial killer-that explains it. The murdered girl was his first, and he enjoyed it. Only a ghoul would use bones as decorations.
Or a research scientist, Farfel reminded himself.
The Cuban lay back on the cot and closed his eyes. They would be in the boat soon headed for Havana. He hoped to cross the two hundred miles in less than twelve hours but feared it might take longer.
No matter. The deadline was less than twenty-four hours away. By tomorrow morning, they would surely be close enough to watch the American plane drop the crates of personal possessions that had been stolen from the Bearded One.
Farfel wanted to personally confirm that all records of the Cuban Program had been destroyed-his future depended on it. It also depended on the millions Castro was rumored to have in Spanish treasure.
Once the ransom had been delivered, he would then turn his attention to finding the American who had lied to them, used them, who had demanded half of the money Nelson Myles had sent and who now had abandoned them to rot in an American prison by not sending a boat as he had promised.
Tenth Man, his code name, although in English it was Tinman.
More than anything else, Farfel wanted to confront Tinman. He would use his intellect to find the poorly coiffured American, Hump’s strength to subdue him and then…
“The job is done, Dr. Navarro.” Hump was standing at the open door. His face was grimy, but he was smiling. “Everything you said, I have done. Would you like to inspect?”
Farfel said, “Get on the boat, we’re leaving.” But as he crossed the room, he stopped and peered into the glass-sided case next to the fireplace. Something was missing.
“Did you take anything from here? I told you not to steal anything, unless it was valuable.”
The huge man shook his head quickly. “Nothing. I swear. Look at the grave, how smooth I made it.” He smiled, a simpleton who was lying but genuinely proud of his work.
Fifteen minutes later, Hump was standing at the helm of the cabin cruiser, throttle open, and still smiling when he passed to the right of a green navigational marker instead of passing to the left.
The boat was doing twenty-five knots when it hit an oyster bar, the impact so violent that Farfel was catapulted over the railing into water that was less than a foot deep. He had been standing on the forward deck, holding a navigational chart in one hand and waving wildly with the other, yelling to Hump, “Stop… stop… stop!”
Farfel recovered his glasses and the chart before wading back to the boat. His back was spasming again, his forearms were bloodied by the oysters, but he was still coherent enough to pause and consider the directional flow of the water. The water was moving southwest, toward the Gulf of Mexico.
Next, Farfel looked at the cabin cruiser. It sat atop the oyster bar like a trophy, even its keel showing.
It would be hours, he realized, before they could leave. They would have to wait until the tide turned and was nearly high again. Eight hours at least.
“Stay away from me,” Farfel said softly when Hump vaulted off the boat to help. “Stay away.”
27
Someone double-crossed the Cuban interrogator. They didn’t send a boat. Who?
I was thinking about it as I sat behind the wheel of Nelson Myles’s Range Rover, the smell of leather and wood mixing with the unmistakable odor of the man’s soiled slacks. Myles and I were only two blocks from the entrance to Falcon Landing. I could see a guard standing beneath a lamppost on a street column-lined with palms.
I asked Myles, “Do your security people carry weapons?”
“If they do, I doubt if they’re loaded,” he said. “They won’t bother us, don’t worry. Park by the harbor, if you want.” Once again, he was trying to manipulate me into reentering the grounds.
I was tempted. I wanted to check the marina, and see if the Cubans had taken the cabin cruiser. If the boat was accurately described, they probably hadn’t made it to Key West yet, not without nosing into the Ten Thousand Islands to refuel. By deadline time, eight tomorrow morning, it was possible they could be in international waters. But, just as likely, they had run aground while leaving Sarasota Bay: Venice Inlet and Snake Island were tricky.
I imagined the Cubans, frustrated and pissed off, sitting high and dry on some bar. Would that be good for the boy or bad?
Could be good, I decided. If they were trapped in U.S. waters, they might keep Will alive as a bargaining chip.
I slowed, watching the guard watch us, then I turned west toward the beach, where I’d parked the rental car. “Now where are we going?” Myles asked.
I said, “To a quiet place. You wanted me to ask questions? It’s time.”
“I changed my mind. There’s nothing I can add. Stop here, let me out, you can have the car. I won’t call police, I promise.”
“Call them. They can listen to your confession.”
“I didn’t confess to anything. What I remember is you sticking a gun in my face and… and, well, why review the obvious? I leave that sort of business to my attorneys. Or… I’ll ask my fraternity brother… the federal judge.” He put his hand on the door. “Let me out.”
I stepped on the gas. “Questions first. Who else knew you murdered the girl?”
“I didn’t murder her,” he said patiently. “It was an accident.”
I gave it a moment before saying, “Who knew, besides Norvin Tomlinson… and Billy Sofvia?”
It was the first I’d mentioned their names, and the impact made Myles sit up straighter. He tried to recover, saying, “The details are fuzzy, I keep telling you. I might have told someone-I was still drunk and high most of the next day. You can’t expect me to remember every little thing. It was a long time ago.”
The details were always fuzzy when Myles got to this part of the story. He was lying again.
“How’s your memory when it comes to last night? Who shot your prize horse? Cazzio… Alacazam… whatever you called him. I heard his stud fee was a couple hundred thousand. No matter how rich you are, that still has to hurt.”
The man’s surprise was palpable. It filled the car with an expanding, pressurized silence, until he said, “Who are you?”
I said, “You haven’t told me everything, Nels. But you will. You left someone out of your story. He’s been helping the Cubans, and you know it.”
“You’ve been lying to me.”
“And I feel just terrible about it. Trust is so important in a relationship. Answer the question.”
“Bullshit. Why should I?”
I said, “You really want me to give you a reason? Someone had to be at your farm to meet the Cubans. Fred Gardiner was drunk and you stayed at the landing strip. That’s what you said. Who helped you?”