“Absolutely.”

A moment later he’s gone and I’m all alone. Just me, the binoculars, and a pulsing gumdrop on a computer screen.

11. Cherchez La Femme

Randall Shane finally has his Town Car. Not actually his own, of course, but hired from a car service. And because Shane will not put himself behind the wheel when he’s been awake for more than twenty-four hours, the car service has also supplied a driver.

“You get much work this time of night?” Shane asks, settling into the shotgun seat. Fully retracted and lowered, the seat accommodates his long legs without his knees bumping the glove box. Taking the front so he can keep a keen eye on the driver’s skills, which at first glance appear to be sufficient. No squealing tires, no herky-jerky braking action.

The driver, a middle-aged Haitian with velvety dark skin and delicate features, responds in formal, rhythmically accented English. “Oh, yessuh, plenty much work nighttime. The people, they go to the clubs and dance all night. They go to the beach and watch the sun come up. Maybe then I take them to the airport, they fly home to New York or Chicago or Los Angeles.”

“Rich people.”

“People with money, yessuh,” he says, gently correcting his passenger. “Rich people, you know, they have full-time chauffeur, S-Class Mercedes.”

Shane hadn’t really considered the distinction between rich people and people with money. But of course there is an important distinction. Taking himself as an example, he isn’t wealthy but he’s able to hire a car. Therefore he belongs to the category of people with money, in the form of a valid Visa card with sufficient credit. That’s all it takes. Not so long ago, within living memory, an average middle-class person wouldn’t dream of hiring a car and driver. Such luxuries were considered the province of millionaires. Nowadays the average lawyer or dentist is a millionaire, at least on paper. A typical school superintendent in a reasonably prosperous district might in retirement be worth a million dollars, if she bought the right house at the right time and invested in tax-deferred funds. On certain blocks in Manhattan, doormen are millionaires. Not doubt about it, billionaire is the new millionaire. Partly it’s a social construct, a mind-set, partly a weird inflation not entirely based on money. And yet money and the getting of money are still at the heart of it, making people behave in not always predictable ways.

Shane is thinking about money and wealth and what it all means because he doesn’t know exactly how Edwin Manning’s superwealthy status plays into the situation. Is it a straight abduction for ransom? Some sort of extortion scheme that may or may not involve Manning’s private hedge fund? A scam engineered from within the family, targeting dear old dad? What? Somehow he has to find an angle, the leverage to pry it all open and, hopefully, extract Kelly Garner alive.

Not an easy or a certain task. Despite the assurances he’s given to Mrs. Garner, Shane is keenly aware of the cruel statistics of abduction cases. If it’s a straight-up money deal there’s a high probability that the daughter has already been killed. Particularly if she just happened to be along for the ride. Why bother with the risk and trouble of keeping an extra victim alive if the target is Manning’s son? For that matter, the only reason to keep the son alive is to establish proof of life prior to a payoff. Making the payoff ends the need for proof of life, often with fatal consequences for the victim.

Shane likes the casino connection. If Seth Manning flew his father’s corporate plane to an airfield in the Glades—a theory yet to be proved—and Kelly Garner’s cell phone has been logged through a cell tower not far from tribal land—established as factual—then it stands to reason the tribe and/or casino is somehow involved, if only by proximity.

“You gamble?” Shane asks the driver.

The man shrugs. “Sometimes, you know, the lottery tickets.”

“Games? Slot machines?”

The driver laughs. “Put my money into a machine that will not give it back? No suh.”

“Folks love to gamble.”

“Many do,” the driver concedes. “Not me. Do you gamble, suh?”

“All the time. But not games or slot machines.”

“Champ de courses?” the driver wants to know. “Racetrack? Horses?”

“People,” Shane tells him.

“Ah,” says the driver, as if he’s been let in on a great joke. “Yessuh, very good.”

The car service required an itinerary, obviously. Shane had mentioned Naples, a two-hour drive straight west, across the top of the Everglades. He paid up front for six hours, with the credit card on record for any further charges. The driver, he has been assured, will remain with the car for however long Mr. Shane desires.

The way he figures, if it takes more than six hours it will mean he’s been shot or abducted, or both.

From Brickell they head out Calle Ocho, through Little Havana. Calle Ocho eventually morphs into 8th Street, widens, and then becomes U.S. 41. Same desolate area he and Mrs. Garner explored earlier, searching for cell towers. The main difference being that at night the road seems to exist all on its own. As if the endless, grassy horizon melts away with the setting sun. A mile or so beyond the junction with Krome Avenue, the last major intersection, he instructs the driver to turn north into what looks like the middle of nowhere.

“There’s a 7-Eleven I want to check out,” he explains. “Don’t worry, the road’s good.”

The driver’s glance reveals suspicion. “Is no 7-Eleven that way,” he says.

“Maybe it’s some other chain. Gas station slash convenience store, whatever. Two or three miles north, on the right. Do you mind?”

“Naples not that way, no, suh.”

“I need to use the bathroom.”

The driver shrugs, reluctantly turning north as instructed. Exhibiting a tension that must soon be dealt with, before he calls his dispatcher with suspicions about the passenger, or panics and goes for whatever weapon he has stashed under the seat. Shane keeping an eye on the guy, trying to relax him with small talk, but the driver doesn’t want to play. He wants, understandably, to know what’s going on, why a big white guy who looks like either a cop or a criminal—often indistinguishable from an immigrant’s point of view—would hire a car to take him to a dubious all-night convenience store out in the bad-news boonies.

When they arrive at the no-name store the driver deftly pulls into the brightest circle of lights and quickly slips out of the vehicle before the motor stops ticking. Standing by the door pretending to stretch, or maybe he’s practicing putting his hands in the air, expecting a holdup.

Shane strolls around the front, reaching for his billfold.

The driver sees him coming and freezes, eyes round with fear.

“Hey,” says Shane, holding out the billfold. “No worries. You familiar with that expression? I think it’s Australian. No worries. Nice, huh?”

“What you want?” the driver asks, terrified.

“What do I want?” says Shane. He opens the wallet, extracts a hundred-dollar bill, tucks it into the driver’s shirt pocket. “I want you to relax. Get yourself a soda or a pastry or whatever.”

The driver, for all his nervousness, is reluctant to leave the vehicle.

“Take the keys with you,” Shane suggests. “I’m not stealing the car, okay? Nothing going on here except a slight detour. You’ve already done your part.”

“Not thirsty,” the driver says, as if suspecting an ambush inside the brightly illuminated convenience store. Maybe some cracker confederates ready to feed him to the gators and steal his lovingly polished vehicle.

“Suit yourself,” Shane says, trying to sound soothing. “Fact is, you got me where I need to go. Or in the neighborhood, anyhow.”

“Why you come here, to this place? Nothing here, no, suh.”