The Whisperers (12 page)

‘Any idea of destinations on the Canadian side?’

‘All standard runs: some animal feed; paper products; machine parts. I could probably get you a list, but it wouldn’t help. They’re straight operations. Either I started asking questions too late, or these people are cleverer than they seem.’

‘People? We’re talking associates?’

‘Some army buddies. They’ve gone on runs with him. Shouldn’t be hard for a man of your talents to find them.’ He picked up his newspaper and began reading. Our conversation had come to an end. ‘It was good talking to you again, Charlie. I’m sure you don’t need Earle to show you out.’

I stood up and put on my jacket.

‘What’s he moving, Jimmy?’

Jimmy’s mouth creased, and the right side raised itself to mirror the left, forming a crocodile smile.

‘That matter is in hand. Maybe I’ll let you know how it works out. . . .’

7

D
id I trust Jimmy Jewel? I wasn’t sure. My grandfather once described him as the kind of man who would lie through omission, but who preferred not to lie at all. Naturally, Jimmy made an exception for US customs and the forces of law and order in general, but even where they were concerned he tended to avoid confrontations wherever possible, thereby obviating the necessity for untruths.

But it was now clear, from what I had been told, that Joel Tobias was on Jimmy Jewel’s radar, which was a little like being tracked by a military drone aircraft: it might just soar above you for the most part, but you never knew when it would call down vengeance upon your head.

After checking that Tobias’s rig remained at the warehouse, and that his Silverado was still parked at his house, I stopped for a bowl of gumbo at the Bayou Kitchen on Deering. Jimmy had said that Joel Tobias was being helped by former soldiers, which brought with it a whole new set of problems. Maine was a veterans’ state: there were more than 150,000 veterans living here, and that wasn’t counting the ones who had been called up again to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of them lived away from the cities, holed up in rural areas like the County. In my experience, a lot of them didn’t care much for talking to outsiders about their activities, legal or otherwise.

I made a call to Jackie Garner from my table, and told him that I had some work for him. Despite being well into his forties, Jackie still lived with his mom, who evinced a benign tolerance for her son’s love of homemade explosives and other improvised munitions, although he was under strict instructions not to bring them into the house. Lately, a degree of tension had crept into this cozily Oedipal relationship, precipitated by the fact that Jackie had begun to date a woman named Lisa, who seemed very fond of her new beau, and was pressing him to move in with her, even if it wasn’t yet clear how much she knew about the whole munitions business. Jackie’s mother regarded the new arrival as unwanted competition for her son’s affections, and had recently begun to play the frail, ageing, ‘Who-will-look-after-me-when-you’re-gone?’ role, one into which she did not easily fit as there were great white sharks less well equipped for the solitary life than Mrs. Garner.

Thus it was that Jackie, caught between these twin poles of affection, like a condemned man whose arms have been attached to a pair of draft horses with a whip braced over their withers, seemed grateful for my call, and was more than willing to take on some otherwise dull surveillance work that did not involve dealing with the women in his life. I told him to stay with Joel Tobias, but if Tobias met up with anyone, then he was to follow the second party. In the meantime, I planned to talk with Ronald Straydeer, a Penobscot Indian who had his finger on veterans’ affairs, and might be able to tell me a little more about Tobias.

But for now I had other obligations: Dave Evans had asked me to come in and cover for him for the weekly beer delivery at the Bear, and then act as bar manager for the rest of the day. It would be a long shift, but Dave was in a hole, so I put Ronald Straydeer off until the next day, then headed down to the Bear in time to meet the Nappi truck. And because the Bear was busy, afternoon slipped quickly into evening, and then into night, with barely a change to the bar’s dimly lit interior, until at last it was after midnight, and I heard my bed calling.

They were waiting for me in the parking lot. There were three of them, all wearing black ski masks and dark jackets. I caught a glimpse of one of them as I was opening my car door, but by then they were on top of me. I lashed out with my right hand, catching someone a glancing blow to the face with my elbow. I followed through with the car key, and felt it cut through the mask and tear the skin beneath. I heard swearing, and then I took a hard blow to the back of the head that sent me sprawling. A gun was placed against my temple, and a male voice said: ‘Enough.’ A car pulled up. Hands were placed beneath my armpits, dragging me to my feet. A sack was forced over my head, and I was pushed into the back of the car and made to lie flat on the floor. One booted foot was placed against the back of my neck. My hands were pulled behind my back, and seconds later I felt the plastic restraints tighten painfully against my skin. Gunmetal tapped me lightly on the same spot where I had earlier been struck, and sparks went off behind my eyes.

‘Stay down, and stay quiet.’

And with no further choice in the matter, I did as I was told.

We headed south on I-95. I could tell from the distance we traveled on Forest, and the turn we made on to the interstate. We drove for no more than fifteen minutes before pulling off to the left. I heard gravel crunch beneath the tires as we came to a halt, and then I was pulled from the car. My arms were forced high behind my back, almost to the point of dislocation, and I was made to walk bent over. Nobody spoke. A door opened. Through the sack I could smell old smoke and urine. I was pushed inside, helped by a boot in the ass that sent me to the floor. Someone laughed. There were rough tiles beneath me, and the smell of human waste was nauseatingly strong. My captors took up positions around me. Their footsteps echoed. I was indoors, but the sound was wrong, and I had a sense of space above my head. In fact, I now had a pretty good idea of where I was. Even after all these years, the place still smelled of burning. I was at the Blue Moon, and I understood that a connection had been made between Jimmy Jewel and me. Those who had brought me to this place knew about our meeting, and they had decided, wrongly, that I was in Jimmy’s employ. A message was about to be sent to Jimmy through me, and even before they began communicating it I was certain that I would have preferred it to be delivered to Jimmy in person.

Someone knelt beside me, and the sack was pulled up as far as my nose.

‘We don’t want to hurt you.’ It was the same male voice that had spoken earlier. It was calm and measured, the voice of a younger man, and without animosity.

‘Maybe you should have thought that one through before you knocked me down in the parking lot,’ I said.

‘You were pretty fast with that key. Seemed like a good idea to quieten you down some. Anyway, enough with the pleasantries. Answer my questions, and you’ll be back at your muscle car before the headache really starts to bite. You know what this is about.’

‘Do I?’

‘Yes, you do. Why are you following Joel Tobias?’

‘Who’s Joel Tobias?’

There was silence for a time before the voice came again, closer now. I could smell mint on the man’s breath.

‘We know all about you. You’re a big shot, running around with a gun, putting bad guys in the ground. Don’t get me wrong: I admire you and what you’ve done. You’re on the right side, and that counts for something. It’s why you’re still breathing instead of sinking into the marshes with a new hole in your head to let the water in. I’ll ask you one more time: why are you following Joel Tobias? Who hired you? Is Jimmy Jewel picking up the tab? Speak now, or you’ll be forever holding your tongue.’

My head ached, and my arms hurt. Something sharp was biting into my palm. I could just have told them that Bennett Patchett had hired me because he believed that Joel Tobias was abusing his girlfriend. I could have, but I didn’t. It wasn’t simply out of concern for Bennett’s own safety; there was an element of stubbornness to it too. Then again, sometimes stubbornness and principle are almost indistinguishable from each other.

‘Like I said, I don’t know any Joel Tobias.’

‘Strip him,’ said another voice. ‘Strip him and cornhole him.’

‘You hear that?’ said the first voice. ‘Some of my buddies here aren’t as concerned about the niceties of conversation as I am. I could step outside to smoke a cigarette, and leave them to amuse themselves with you.’ A blade touched my buttocks, and glanced against my groin. Even through my trousers, I felt the keenness of its edge. ‘Is that what you want? You’ll be a changed man after it, that’s for sure. In fact, you’ll be a bitch.’

‘You’ve made a mistake,’ I said, and I sounded braver than I felt.

‘You’re a fool, Mr. Parker. You’re going to tell us the truth within the next minute. I guarantee you.’

He let the sack drop down over my nose and mouth. Hands grabbed my legs, and I heard the sticky rasp of heavy-duty tape before it was wound tightly around my calves. The sack was twisted tightly against my Adam’s apple. Then I was lifted and carried across the room. I was turned so that I was facing up, and then my legs were raised higher than my head.

The voice spoke again.

‘You’re not going to like this,’ it said, ‘and I’d prefer not to have to do it, but needs must.’

I could just about breathe through the material, but I was already hyperventilating. I tried to bring my breathing under control, counting slowly from one to ten in my head. I got as far as three before I smelled fetid water, and then I was plunged headfirst below its surface.

I tried to resist the urge to inhale, tried to hold my breath entirely, but a finger probed for my solar plexus and then began placing steady pressure on it. Water flooded into my nose and mouth. I started to choke. Then I began to drown. It wasn’t just a sensation of drowning: my head was filling with water. When I inhaled, the cloth tightened against my face, and I took in fluid. When I tried to cough it away more water flooded my throat. I began to lose track of whether I was inhaling or exhaling, of what was up and what was down. I was certain that I was on the verge of blacking out when they pulled me out and laid me on the floor. The sack was yanked away from the lower half of my face. I was turned on my side and allowed to cough up water and phlegm.

‘There’s plenty more where that came from, Mr. Parker,’ said my interrogator, for that was what he was: my interrogator and my torturer. ‘Who hired you? Why were you meeting with Jimmy Jewel?’

‘I don’t work for Jimmy Jewel.’ I gasped out the words.

‘Then why did you go to his place today?’

‘It was just a casual meeting. Look, I—’

The sack was pulled back down, and I was lifted and immersed, lifted and immersed, but there were no more questions, no opportunities to make it stop, and I believed that I was going to die. When I went down for the fourth time, I would have told them anything to bring it to an end, anything at all. I thought that I heard someone say, ‘You’re killing him,’ but there was no anxiety about the fact. It was merely an observation.

I was raised from the water and lowered to the floor again, but I still felt as though I were drowning. The sack was pressed against my nose and mouth, and I couldn’t breathe. I thrashed on the floor like a dying fish, trying to push the sack away, not caring as I scraped my face against the floor through the material. At last, mercifully, it was pulled up. I had to force myself to inhale, for my system seemed to have shut down in expectation of water, not air. Facedown, I felt hands pushing at my back, forcing the fluid from me. It seared my throat and nostrils as it emerged, as though it were acid, not filthy water.

‘Jesus,’ said the same voice that had earlier commented on the possibility of my death, ‘he pretty much swallowed half the barrel.’

The first man spoke again. ‘For the last time, Mr. Parker: who hired you to follow Joel Tobias?’

‘No more,’ I said, and I hated the pleading tone of my voice. I was broken. ‘No more . . .’

‘Just be straight with us. But this is your last chance: the next time, we’ll leave you to drown.’

‘Bennett Patchett,’ I said. I was ashamed at my weakness, but I didn’t want to go under again. I didn’t want to die that way. I coughed again, but less water emerged this time.

‘Damien’s father,’ came a third voice, one that I had not heard before. It was deeper than the rest, the voice of a black man. He sounded tired. ‘He’s talking about Damien’s father.’

‘Why?’ said the first voice again. ‘Why did he hire you.’

‘He employs Joel Tobias’s girlfriend. He was concerned about her. He thought Tobias might be beating her.’

‘You’re lying.’

I felt him reach for the sack again, and I pulled away.

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s the truth. Bennett’s a good man. He was just worried about the girl.’

‘Shit,’ said the black man. ‘All this because Joel can’t keep his old lady in line.’

‘Quiet! Did the girl say something to Patchett to make him think this?’

‘No. They’re his own suspicions, nothing more.’

‘There’s more to it than that, though, isn’t there? Tell me. We’ve come this far. It’s nearly over now.’

I had no dignity left. ‘He wants to know why his son died.’

‘Damien shot himself. The “why” won’t bring him back.’

‘That’s hard for Bennett to accept. He’s lost his boy, his only son. He’s hurting.’

For a time, nothing else was said, and I experienced the first glimmer of hope that I might yet come out of this alive and, perhaps, that Bennett would not suffer for my weakness.

The interrogator leaned in close to me. His breath was warm against my cheek, and I felt the terrible intimacy that is part of the pact between the tormented and the tormentor. ‘Why did you follow Tobias to his rig?’