In Spanish, Lourdes said, “We don’t want to kill this beautiful brat of yours, but our people in Florida tell us you’re not cooperating. Why aren’t you cooperating?”
I started to say, “We are cooperating. The car following us today wasn’t police. They were-”
But Lourdes interrupted, screaming, “Shut up! You’re giving me a fucking migraine!” followed by a string of ranting profanities spoken in such a tone of agony that it sounded as if he really might have been in pain.
I thought to myself, The man’s insane.
After a short, gathering pause, when he’d regained some control, he continued, “Cooperating? What are you, some kind of moron? The woman’s supposed to answer our e-mails immediately. We sent one three hours ago and still haven’t heard back. The bitch is supposed to be alone. ”
I said, “I’m the boy’s father. I’m Laken’s father. We’ve got the money. All we want is the boy-”
“Shut your fuckin’ mouth and listen!” His voice had that anguished quality again. “We want more than cash, now. We’re fighting a war. We need medical supplies. Some of the new breakthrough drugs not easy to get. One that’s experimental-for our wounded. The brat tells me you’re some kind of big-shot scientist. He says you know all about medicine, and can do just about any fucking thing. So that’s your new job, finding the drugs and delivering them with the money.”
Lourdes had been told I was a scientist? It was the first indication that Lake might still be alive. I wanted more than just an indicator, though. I wanted to find a way to apply at least some light leverage; was hesitant to risk it, but knew I had to try.
Medical supplies. Something about the way he said it suggested that he had a personal interest. They seemed important to him. Maybe that’s why Lake had told him “scientist.” He’d hedged intentionally. Made me sound more important than I was-a finesse on Lake’s part that gave me a fine surge of optimism. My son was working the guy instinctively, helping to set him up for me. Why Lourdes believed I had connections in the medical field didn’t matter. As long as he thought I could be useful, it gave me a tiny opening.
I began, “I’m not a physician. I’ve got access to medicines; prescription stuff. Experimental drugs, though, could take some time. You need to understand that. You don’t just go to the store and place an order.”
“You have until Sunday. No later.”
“I have to know what you need, and the quantities. First, though, let me talk to the boy. That’s not negotiable. I’m giving your people drugs and cash? Let me hear his voice. After that, I’ll do what you say-but I want daily e-mails so we know you’re keeping him alive.”
“ You want? Why the fuck should we care what you want? Maybe we’ll just kill him now, big shot.”
I had to force the words out of my mouth: “Because then you wouldn’t have any leverage. Personally-well, the kid and I aren’t that close. He’s costing me a lot of money. Now you want drugs, experimental medicine, which, frankly, I can’t get legally. Even trying to get experimental drugs could put my career in jeopardy. I want to be sure I’m getting something in return.”
I had heard his coughing, bully’s laughter on the video. I heard it again now. “Hooh, a tough guy, huh! O.K… O.K. Go ahead and talk to your brat, tough guy. But I want those fucking drugs!”
A few moments later, I heard my son say, “Doc? Dad? ” and then add in a rush, “Doc, you need to do what he says. His friends will hurt Mother. They have someone watching her all the time. Please do what he says.”
Lake sounded hoarse, frail. I found it heartbreaking that he was more concerned for Pilar than for himself. Because I knew I had only seconds to talk to him, and because I suspected Lourdes or someone else was listening in, I replied, “I’ll follow their orders, you do the same. They’re going to let you send me e-mails. Don’t be tricky. Write about the usual stuff: baseball, birds, plants. Just so I know it’s you. Things just the two of us know about. Science. Understand?”
On one level, I meant exactly what I said. On a more subtle, second level, I was trying to tell him there might be a way for us to pass information secretly.
Science is its own language. We’d written that back and forth often enough.
Did he understand?
He didn’t seem to. Didn’t even seem to hear me, because after a beat or two of silence, he replied, “Mother needs to be protected-”
He didn’t finish. Lourdes’ loud voice cut him off, saying, “Happy, asshole? Check your e-mail tonight. You better get what I want.”
There was a click, and they were gone.
My cousin, Ransom, was already in the galley of my little house, heating a pot of soup on the propane stove when I walked in.
“Brother, my brother,” she said, holding her arms out to me, “I be worried about you so much.”
I hugged her tight, lifting her so that her toes pointed to the wooden floor, letting her know how much I appreciated her boating over to keep me company.
“He’s alive!” I told her, delighted, and then explained why I was certain.
“We got to find my nephew,” she said when I’d finished. Her tone was solemn. “What those fools down there in the jungle don’t be suspectin’ is, you got yourself a sister who knows the words. Who’s got the power. I can throw a spell on them Latino trash that’ll ruin ’em from here. Fact, that’s jes what I’m gonna do, my brother. Throw me a spell on them bad boys.”
I smiled, stood away, then kissed her on the forehead. “Thanks, sis. You do that.”
As Tucker Gatrell’s daughter, Ransom’s not my real sister, of course. But because she has introduced herself that way ever since arriving on Sanibel-“How you doin’, mon, I’m Doc’s sistah!”-many have come to accept it as fact, and so I no longer correct them, or her.
If people believe that I am the brother of a lanky, buxom, coconut-brown woman who casts spells, wears voodoo beads braided into her hair, and who makes blood offerings at midnight, that’s O.K. with me. It’s flattering. Flattering because I’ve come to care for Ransom like she really is my sister. She is smart and perceptive, with a bawdy sense of comedy. She’s also as tough as they come, and a raging independent.
“I know you don’t believe in my power, man. But it’s real. You tell me about the men who took our boy, I’ll make it happen.”
When the woman talks, it’s more like she’s singing, so I heard: Ah-no-ya doan ba-leeve en me-paawh-er, mon!
I kissed her a second time, then told her, “You make your magic, and I’ll make mine. Yeah, the bastards will regret it before we’re done.”
I took my address book from the little teak secretary next to the reading chair, found the number I needed. As I dialed, I watched Ransom moving gracefully around the kitchen. She was wearing pink satiny shorts and a black tank top that showed her breast implants, of which she is so proud.
Tucker Gatrell had been a tropical bum and a Caribbean junkie. It was illustrative of Tucker’s life that Ransom, one of the few good things produced by his wanderings, had been accidental. She’d grown up poor, fatherless, and carried her poverty into adulthood, along with a severe weight problem.
Sometimes good things come out of tragedy, and for Ransom, it was her decision to fight back against what seemed inevitable. She decided to change; to prepare her body and outlook for what she calls her “Womanly Life.” The implants, she says, were symbolic.
As I dialed, she looked at me severely and said, “Man, who you callin’ this late at night?”
I told her it wasn’t nearly so late in Scottsdale, Arizona, where a certain friend lived. I did not mention that I’d dialed a Virginia area code to reach my friend’s Arizona desert adobe, nor that the friend was intelligence wizard Bernie Yeager.
She swung her head away, irked at my secrecy, and the Obeah beads braided into her hair added a clattering rebuke. She also wore strings of beads around her neck, I noticed: strands of red and white beads, as well as strands of white and yellow.