Lost (20 page)

The village has no security gate, no obvious security guards, but moments after the Hummer parks in the shadow of the chickee huts, black-haired men emerge as if from nowhere and surround the vehicle. They could be brothers or cousins, all with similar dark eyes, thick hair the color of glittering coal dust, and not a smile among them.

Edwin lowers his window. “Edwin Manning. I’m here to see Joe Lang,” he announces. “I called.”

“No guns.”

“Fine,” Edwin says.

He exits the vehicle, raises his arms, expecting to be patted down. Indicates that Sally and the boys do likewise. Soon they’re all standing around with their arms in the air. The black-haired men stare at them but do not touch.

“No guns.”

“Fine, sure,” says Edwin. “We agree, no guns. We are not carrying firearms. Go ahead, check.”

One of the men, little more than a teenager, really, but stocky and confident, holds out his hand and says, “Give me the keys.”

Edwin says, “Somebody give him the keys, please!”

With key in hand the youth goes directly to the back of the vehicle, opens the rear door, lifts the rug, and exposes the assortment of handguns stashed in the storage well. He looks at Edwin, just the trace of a satisfied smirk starting to show. “The penalty for possession of firearms is ten years, unless the council decides to show mercy.”

“Fuggin’ hell!” blurts Stink Breath. “Are they crazy?”

The stocky teenager shrugs his indifference. “We passed that law because white men kept coming on our land. Jacking gators, running dope, distilling alcohol, all those crazy-ass white man activities. Only an idiot would insult us by ignoring the law.”

“I freely admit these men are idiots,” Edwin says, “and I’m an idiot for employing them. Take the guns. Now, may I please see Joe Lang? It’s a matter of life and death or I wouldn’t be here.”

A voice comes down from above.

“Up here,” it says.

A man in a snakeskin vest looks down from the porch of a newly built chickee, gestures to Edwin. “Just you. Rico? See the others get something cold to drink.”

Edwin climbs the steps, moves into the shade under the thatched roof of the wraparound porch. “Joe,” he says. “Thank you for seeing me. Nice place you got here.”

“Sit.”

Edwin knows better than to offer to shake hands. Nakosha tribal members sometimes embrace, but never acquired the habit of gripping hands, and tolerate the practice only out of politeness. The man in the snakeskin vest pours iced tea from a heavy glass pitcher dewed with moisture. He’s of slender, wiry build, fifty or so, with creased skin the color of saddle
leather. Bare chested under the vest, and his faded jeans are fastened at the waist by a hand-tooled leather belt with a solid gold buckle cast in the shape of an alligator jawbone.

“You like the vest?” he asks, admiring his own garment. “Rattlesnake skin, imported from the Philippines. Only rattlers around here are farm raised. They sell ‘em in the casino gift shop. Five grand. The vest, not the rattlers.”

Edwin waits, sips his iced tea, well aware that the man in the vest, like his brothers and cousins, does not like to be rushed into the meat of conversation. Eventually he nods his assent, invites Edwin to begin the real discussion.

“You know about Ricky?” Edwin begins. “What he’s done, what he’s doing, what he wants?”

“We do not speak of that person. He is dead.”

“I understand,” Edwin says, “but if he doesn’t get what he wants he’s going to kill my son.”

“The person is crazy. He is not Nakosha.”

“He was. He’s still your nephew. I need your help, Joe. Surely you and your family owe me that much.”

The man in the vest avoids eye contact, stares off into the distance. “We’re very sorry for your troubles, Mr. Manning, but we can’t speak to the dead. And even if we could, the person would not listen. The person will do what he wants to do.”

“I’m not asking you to speak directly to Ricky at this point. I’m asking you to convene the council, make it look like you’re considering his request. I’m begging you. Help me find my son.”

The man in the vest reaches into a pocket, removes a pair of classic Ray-Bans, and puts them on. Eyes completely concealed, he looks as regal as a shirtless man can look. “I am sorry, Edwin, but what this person does is no longer our business. There is nothing we can do.”

“That’s your position?” Edwin says, taking care to keep his voice level and nonthreatening. “Just let it happen? Let your nephew cut off my son’s fingers, feed him to the buzzards, piece by piece? That’s your position?”

The man in the vest shrugs. “What can I do? I told you, he is dead to us.”

“What happened is, Ricky asked to borrow the corporate plane. I felt I owed him that much. But it was just an excuse to snatch my son, who he knew would be piloting the aircraft. He wants me to intervene with the tribal council, get him reinstated.”

“Not our problem. He is no longer Nakosha. There will be no reinstatement.”

Edwin looks down from the porch, observes his security detail drinking bottles of Coke in the shade, looking fairly relaxed, given the situation. The young tribal members have backed away, giving the visitors—the violators—space. Near as he can tell there have been no more threats about the concealed weapons. Good. He hasn’t got time for that. Just as he hasn’t got time to enter lengthy, cordial negotiations with Joe Lang or other members of the council. Seth hasn’t got time. Time is the enemy. Time is death.

Edwin leans forward, doesn’t bother looking into at the opaque sunglasses, which he assumes are meant to be, if not a direct insult, a way of maintaining a cool, impregnable distance. “Let me tell you what will happen if my son dies,” he begins, softly but insistently. “First, I will close off all lines of credit to the tribe and to the gaming enterprise. You may find another source of financing, but it will be, at the very least, difficult and more expensive. Second, I will seek to tie up all tribal assets. I don’t mean your land or your houses or your trucks and motor homes, those can’t be touched. I mean
your money. Based on my belief, as elucidated by the army of cunning, soulless attorneys who will represent me, that you and the council and every member of the tribe have a shared responsibility to oversee the actions of one of their own. Call him dead, if you like. Kick him out of the tribe, fine, that’s your prerogative. But you will not be able to hide behind any legal, ethical or tribal fictions that the actions he has taken against me personally are not a direct and deadly consequence of the actions you took against him. You hurt him, therefore he hurt me because he knew I’d come to you on bended knee, which I have. I have asked for your help and you spurn me.”

Edwin pauses, his heart slamming like a tag-team wrestler pounding the canvas, begging for mercy. Outwardly the man in the snakeskin vest has not reacted beyond a slight thinning of the lips.

“If my son dies because you refused to help me, refused to help a man who helped you and your people, then I promise you this. On the graves of my wife and son, I swear I will spend every penny of all my wealth to wreck havoc upon your people. I will hire lobbyists. I will bribe politicians. I’ll buy judges. Whatever it takes, on all levels—county, state and federal—from now until the last day of forever. You will have to spend every dollar of casino income defending yourselves. You think you have trouble with Ricky Lang? Imagine what will happen when those young men down there find that you’ve squandered their future income on lawyer fees. If my son dies because of an argument you and your cronies had with your crazy nephew, so help me God I’ll seek to prove that the Nakosha are not a distinct tribe, and therefore do not deserve tribal status. And after I’m dead it won’t end, because I’ll have endowed a foundation whose
sole purpose will be proving that you’re not Indian at all, but a band of escaped Cuban sugarcane slaves who hid in the swamp and played Indian when it suited your purpose.”

“That’s a white man’s lie,” says the man in the vest, softly, his jaw muscles clenching.

“It’s a white man’s world, Joe,” Edwin reminds him. “But look, I didn’t come here to make threats or throw my weight around. I came here asking for help. Help me, please.”

The man in the vest takes off his pricey sunglasses. His eyes give nothing away. “The council will meet,” he says. “There will be a discussion.”

On the long and bumpy ride out, Edwin Manning orders Sally Pop to stop at the sign warning visitors that firearms are prohibited in the sovereign territory of the Nakosha Nation. The Hummer idles, engine growling.

“What do you see?” Edwin asked.

Sally peers helplessly out the window, eyes popping more than usual. “What am I looking for?” he asks plaintively.

“You tell me,” Edwin suggests. “You’re the security guy. Maybe, I dunno, the surveillance camera on top of the sign? The camera that lets the really smart Indians watch the really stupid cowboys try to hide their guns?”

“Shit,” says Sally, clocking the small but rather obvious CCTV camera mounted on the pole holding up the sign.

Stink Breath rolls down his window and leans out, giving the camera a pudgy middle finger. “Remember the fuggin’ Alamo!” he shouts.

“That was Mexicans,” Edwin points out, “not Indians.”

“Same thing,” Stink Breath insists.

9. Rockin At The Europa

Million-dollar penthouse condos don’t look like all that much these days, at least from the outside. Just another row of windows in another silver tower scratching at the city’s jagged skyline. In downtown Miami the old tropical pastels having given way to a more businesslike brushed chrome and raw concrete. One of many such recent structures in what used to be the Brickell Avenue financial district, which has been transformed, according to Shane, into a financial/residential/retail area with thousands of new units under construction, presold or occupied.

The elevated cranes are everywhere, crawling like thin steel spiders, weaving a brand-new city in the sky. Progress measured by the cubic yard, total square feet and creative financing.

“Boom doesn’t describe what’s happened to Miami,” he explains, surveying the glittering new tower with a pair of small Nikon binoculars. “More like one of those crazy reality movies,
Real Estate Gone Wild.
A lot of it fueled by Latin American money. Makes a lot of sense if you look at an aviation map—Miami is right in the center of air-travel routes from all of South and Central America. Wealthy family from, say, Caracas, they keep a nice place in Miami, come here to shop every couple of months, check on the investments. And if the crap ever hits the fan back home, they’ve already got a stake in the good old U.S.A., and a ready-made roof over their heads.”

“So it’s all about money?”

“Sure. Money and security.”

“Speaking of money, I gotta ask,” I say, a little nervous. “What do you charge? I mean, this is going to be expensive, right? Helping me find Kelly?”

He lowers the binoculars. “Please don’t concern yourself. When the job is done, when your daughter is safe home, we’ll sit down and determine a reasonable fee. Some of the people I’ve helped are wealthy and some are not. People pay what they can afford. It all evens out.”

“I was just, you know, concerned.”

“Don’t be. Not about my fee, in any case.” He returns to the binoculars, subject closed. “I see somebody. One of Manning’s underlings, I assume. Looks like he’s pouring himself a drink at the stand-up bar.”

Shane hands me the binoculars, lets me look for myself. We’re on a balcony facing the condo tower. In a manic burst of energy I’d checked us into Europa, an elegant new hotel in an exclusive little enclave on Biscayne Bay. The place is absurdly, almost offensively pricey, which is what got me nervous about money, but it has a direct view of Manning’s condo from the balcony, and so on impulse I had handed over my American Express card and tried not to look at the per-night total for adjoining rooms. A big ouch. The careful, businessperson part of me still counting dimes while the desperate mom throws caution—and credit—to the soft tropical winds.

To be more specific, the breeze from the bay is sultry, moisture laden, smelling faintly of salt and a fecund odor that Shane says comes from the mangroves miles away. Whatever, I’m adjusting to the heat, buying into my new sense of mission. If Edwin Manning and his minions are here, there must be hope.

“That’s him!” I exclaim. “The bald jerk with the pop-out eyes.”

“The guy from the airport?”

“Yes! He’s got his arm in a sling.”

“Got his ass in a sling, more like.”

“He’s pointing his finger at the guy with the drink, telling him something. Doesn’t look like a happy conversation.”

“Lemme see.”

I hand over the binoculars.

Shane studies, nods. “This is good. We’ve got the right address.”

“You already got that from the Internet,” I point out.

“Yeah, but it never hurts to confirm. Back in the day, I was on a stakeout once for a whole week? Two teams, twelve-hour shifts, waiting for the suspect to show his face. Turns out we had the wrong side of the building, the suspect was coming and going the whole time. We were staking out the wrong apartment. My mistake.”

“I prefer to think you never make mistakes.”

He places the binoculars in my hands. “Me? To err is human.”

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“Back to my computer. Just thought of something.”

“What should I do?”

“Keep watching.”

“What am I watching for?”

Shane looks at me. “You’ll know it when you see it. Something out of the ordinary.”

“But everything is out of the ordinary,” I protest. “I’m supposed to be adjusting hemlines, not spying on billionaires.”

“Keep watching,” he insists, heading for his laptop.

I keep watching. He keeps clacking on the keys.

Eyeballing the interior of Manning’s condo gives me a new appreciation for bird-watchers. I had no idea it was so much work, keeping focus. Plus the lens distorts things and it takes concentration to figure out what, exactly, you’re
looking at. For instance I keep seeing this flash of white, and assume that someone is darting across the big room, but that doesn’t really make sense—why run?—so I keep looking and eventually figure out it’s a reflection from a TV screen that must be wall mounted, facing the interior of the room, or maybe coming from a corner. Which also explains the dull looks from the heavy guy with his arm in a sling. He and two other burly types just sitting there staring like a row of hypnotized apes. Monkey see, monkey sit. And yes, I do know that apes aren’t monkeys. Having been corrected by Kelly, who as usual was rolling her eyes at my ignorance.