“Don’t,” he said, covering both possibilities.
“I’ll send it back to him. I don’t know how else to handle it.” Her voice was thin and sad. Hurriedly she put the ring away.
Augustine asked, “What do you want to do?”
“Be with you for a while. Is that OK?”
“Perfect.”
Brightening, Bonnie said, “What about you, Mister Live-for-Today?”
“You’ll be pleased to know I’ve got a plan.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“Really,” he said. “I’m going to sell Uncle Felix’s farm, or what’s left of it. And my house, too. Then I intend to find someplace just like this and start again. Someplace on the far edge of things. Still interested?”
“I don’t know. Will there be cable?”
“No way.”
“Rattlesnakes?”
“Possibly.”
“Boy. The edge of the edge.” Bonnie pretended to be mulling.
He said, “Ever heard of the Ten Thousand Islands?”
“Somebody counted them all?”
“No, dear. That would take a lifetime.”
“Is that your plan?” she asked.
Augustine was familiar with the partner-choosing dilemma. She was deciding whether she wanted an anchor or a sail. He said, “There’s a town called Chokoloskee. You might hate it.”
“Baloney. Stay right here.” Bonnie hopped to her feet.
“Now where are you going?”
“Back to camp for some poetry.”
“Sit down. I’m not finished.”
She spanked his arm away. “You read to me. Now I’m going to read to you.”
What Bonnie had in mind, dashing up the trail, was Whitman. Somewhere in the rusted ambulance was a hardbound volume of “Song of Myself,” a poem she’d loved since high school. One line in particular—“In vain the mastodon retreats from its own powder’d bones”—reminded her of Skink.
As she entered the campsite, she spotted him motionless on the ground. Snapper craned over him, making throaty snarls. He was coming down from a sulfurous rage. In one hand was a piece of burnt wood that Bonnie recognized as the governor’s hiking torch.
She stood rigid, her fists balled at her sides. Snapper wore a contorted expression made no less malignant by the red-and-chrome bar clamped to his face. He was unaware of Bonnie watching from the tree line. He dropped the torch, snatched up the suitcase and began to run.
Insanely she went after him.
CHAPTER
31
Snapper had been awakened by a cool drizzle. The campsite was still. The one-eyed lunatic was asleep, stretched out in his grubby army duds beneath a tree. There was no sign of Edie Marsh, or the sharpshooter, or the weird broad who’d doused herself with soda pop in the Jeep.
Slowly Snapper sat up. His eyes were crusty and his mouth was ash dry. A clot of black dirt stuck to one eyebrow. For the umpteenth time he tried unsuccessfully to wrench The Club out of his gums. The pain was hideous, as if the bones of his face were spring-loaded to blow apart. He was grateful he couldn’t see himself; he must’ve looked like a fucking circus freak. Bucket-Mouth Man. Dorks lining up to toss softballs down his gullet.
Jesus H. Christ, he thought, I gotta clear the cobwebs.
There on the ground was the suitcase full of cash, yawning, where Skink had left it. The smell pungently reminded Snapper that it hadn’t been a nightmare: The asshole had actually pissed on ninety-four thousand perfectly good U.S. dollars.
Snapper tested his legs; left, right, together. Next he clenched his hands, flexed his arms. So far, so good. The second tranquilizer dart finally had worn off.
He rose to his feet. Tenuously he took one step toward the cash. Then another. The iron bar on his jaws was so cumbersome that he almost lost his balance and toppled forward. He tried to hold his breath while he latched the suitcase, but the aroma was unavoidable. Snapper found the water jug and emptied it into his throat. His spluttering failed to disturb the dozing lunatic.
Snapper spied a handy weapon—a length of gummy wood, one end charred.
The big dork must’ve heard him coming, because he tried to roll away when Snapper swung. The blow caught the man in a shoulder instead of the head, but Snapper heard bones crack. He knew it hurt.
“Ahhheeegggnnn!” he brayed, swinging again and again until the fucker quit rolling and just lay there making a faint hiss, like a tire going flat.
Bonnie had always been scrappy for her size. In junior high she had chased down a boy who’d lifted her skirt in the school cafeteria. The boy’s name was Eric Schultz. He was almost six feet tall, foul-mouthed and cocky, a star of the basketball team. He outweighed Bonnie by eighty pounds. When he tried to run away, she tackled him, held him down and punched him in the testicles. Eric Schultz missed the first and second rounds of the basketball playoffs. Bonnie Brooks was suspended from class for three days. Her father said it was worth it; he was proud. Bonnie’s mother said she overreacted, because the boy Eric had been held back twice for eighth grade. Bonnie’s mother said he’d probably done what he had to Bonnie because he didn’t know any better. He does now, Bonnie had said. She agreed with her father: Stupidity was an overworked excuse.
With his bum knee, Snapper was easy to catch. His speed was further hindered by the unwieldy facial contraption, which snagged in the vines and branches. He went down in the same basic configuration as had Eric Schultz—limbs splayed, nose down. It took only a moment for Snapper to realize it was a woman hanging off his shoulders, and not a large one. The casual manner in which he shook free suggested to Bonnie that her rabbit punches were ineffective. Unlike young Eric Schultz, Lester Maddox Parsons had been to prison, where he’d learned much about dirty fighting. He wasn’t about to let a one-hundred-pound girl get a clear shot at his jewels.
With both arms he swung the Frenchman’s suitcase, knocking Bonnie sideways against the gnarled trunk of an old buttonwood. She landed flat on her back, punching frenetically. The red steel bar across Snapper’s cheeks blocked her best jabs. He quickly pinned her wrists, but she stopped kicking only when he dug a knee into her pubic bone.
Beneath the dull deadening weight of his torso, she gradually lost sight of the buzzards and the gathering clouds. Her next view was a glistening, pink, fistulous cave—his mouth, stretched in the shape of a permanent scream. He panted from exertion; hot, necrotic gusts. Bonnie wanted to gag. Something wet and wormy settled on the cleft of her chin.
A lip.
She took it in her teeth and bit hard. Snapper yowled and pulled away. A half second later, Bonnie was stunned by a sharp blow to her temple. The Club. The bastard was trying to beat her with it, using frenzied, snorting sweeps of his head. She had no way to protect herself. Snapper wouldn’t release her arms because he didn’t need his own for the attack; his gourd was doing all the work. Bonnie was dazed by another white burst of pain. She shut her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see his goggling wet hole of a face. She made herself go limp, thinking that unconsciousness would be fine and dandy.
Snapper imagined himself a wild bull in the ring; goring at will. The bitch was helpless beneath him, hardly twitching. He paused to catch his breath, spit blood, and congratulate himself for so cleverly converting a handicap to a martial asset. The cop on the TV commercial was right; The Club was indestructible! Despite the stinging of his lip and the burning in his knee and the electric throbbing in the joints of his jaw, Snapper didn’t feel so bad. His pride outweighed the pain. Certainly he’d earned the rights to the Frenchman’s hurricane money.
That’s when a hand moved between his legs; lightly, like a sparrow on a branch.
“Nnnngggguuuhhh!!”
The bitch grabbed him. Snapper bellowed. He thrashed his head, trying to pummel her with the heavy end of The Club. Then he realized it couldn’t be the girl squeezing his balls, because both her wrists remained pinned in the dirt. She wasn’t moving a muscle. It had to be somebody else
.
Then, from a distance, he heard: “No! Don’t do that.”
He tried to hold still. Tried to breathe without whimpering. Tried to turn ever so slightly, to see who the fuck had at least one (and possibly both) of his nuts in their fingers.
Again the voice, this time closer: “Don’t do it! Don’t!”
The one-eyed freak, calling out.
Who’s he talking to? Snapper wondered. Don’t do what?
Then the gun went off at his head, and he knew.
• • •
Max Lamb was surprised to find a woman sleeping in the front seat of his rental car. He recognized her as the one whom the state trooper had dropped off in the parking lot earlier that afternoon.
She sat up, brushing her long brown hair from her eyes. “It was raining. I had no place to go.” Not the least bit bashful.
“That’s OK,” Max said. He wormed out of the Day-Glo poncho and tossed it in the back seat.
“My name is Edie.” She reached out to shake his hand.
He took it, stiffly. She had a strong grip.
“I’m Max,” he said. Then he heard himself saying: “You need a lift back to Miami?”
Edie Marsh nodded gratefully. That’s what she’d been counting on. One way or another, all rental cars ultimately returned to Miami.
She said, “I would’ve tried hitching a ride, but there was lightning.”
“Yeah, I heard.”
Somehow Max missed the ramp to the Turnpike; it wasn’t easy, but he did. Edie didn’t complain. A lift was a lift. All the roads went the same direction anyway.
“Where are you from, Max?” He looked perfectly harmless, but still she wanted to get him talking. Silent brooding made her edgy.
“New York. I’m in advertising.”
“No kidding.”
And off he went. During the next hour, Edie learned a great deal about Madison Avenue. Max was absolutely elated to discover that she’d been a glutton for Plum Crunchies cereal. And she remembered his slogan, word for word!
“What others have you done?” she asked brightly.
Max was tempted to tell her about Intimate Mist but thought better of it. Not everyone felt comfortable on the subject of douches.
“Bronco cigarets,” he said.
“Really!”
“Speaking of which, would you mind if I smoked?”
“Not at all,” said Edie Marsh.
He offered her a menthol. She declined politely. As smoke filled the car, she rolled down the window and tried not to cough herself blue. “When are you going back to New York?”
“Tomorrow,” Max said. He grew quiet again.
Edie said: “If you tell me, I’ll tell you.”
Max looked perplexed.
She said, “You know—what we were doing with that cop. Me coming, you going.”
“Oh.” After a pause: “I’m not in any kind of trouble, if that’s what you mean.”
Dryly she said, “I had a hunch you’re no Ted Bundy.”
What eyes! Max thought. What an interesting woman! He had reason to believe she was aware of her impact.
He said, “How about this: If you don’t tell me, I won’t tell you. What’s over is over.”
“I like that approach.”
“Let’s just agree we’ve had a bad day.”
“And how.”
In South Dade they hit heavy traffic where the storm had blown ashore, taking down everything. Edie Marsh had seen the destruction the day after the hurricane, but it seemed much worse to her now. She was surprised to find herself fighting back tears.
Out of nowhere Max said: “Hey, I bet I can guess what kind of car you drive.” Apparently trying to take their minds off what they saw: Two unshaven men, on a street corner, fighting over a five-gallon jug of fresh water. Their wives and children watching anxiously from the sidewalk.
“Seriously,” Max was saying. “It’s a knack I’ve got. Matching people to their cars.”
“Based on …?”
“Intuition, I guess you’d say.”
Edie said, “OK, give it a try.”
Max, eyeing her up and down, like he was guessing her weight: “Nissan 300?”
“Nope.”
“A 280Z?”
“Try an Acclaim.”
He winced. “I had you figured for a sports import.”
“Well, I’m flattered,” Edie said, with a soft laugh.
There was a brutal truth at the heart of Max’s silly game. Eligible young Kennedys and even sons of sitting presidents did not customarily flag down women in 1987 Plymouths.
Later, after Max had found the Turnpike extension and made his way downtown, he said: “Where can I drop you?”
“Let me think about that,” said Edie Marsh.
“Captain, have you got a mirror?”
“No.”
“Good,” Bonnie said.
She felt a raw knot rising on her forehead, another on a cheekbone. Augustine assured her that she didn’t look as bad as she thought. “But you could use some ice.”
“Later.” She was watching Skink. “I know somebody who ought to be in a hospital.”
“No,” said the governor.
“Augustine says your collarbone is broken.”
“I believe he’s right.”
“And several ribs.”
“I shall call you Nurse Nightingale.”
“Why are you so stubborn?”
“I know a doctor in Tavernier.”
“And how do you plan to get there?”
“Walking upright,” Skink replied. “One of the few commendable traits of our species.”
Bonnie told him to quit being ridiculous. “You’re in terrible pain, I can tell.”
“The whole world’s in pain, girl.”
She looked imploringly to Augustine. “Talk to him, please.”
“He’s a grown man, Bonnie. Now hold still.”
He was cleaning her face with his shirt, which he’d wadded up and soaked in the creek. Skink perched on a nearby log, his arms crossed tightly. Moments earlier they’d watched him gobble a dozen Anacins from a plastic bottle he located under the camp tarpaulin. Bonnie boldly swallowed three.
No aspirins were offered to Snapper, who was bound with a corroded tow-truck chain to the buttonwood tree. He was caked with soggy leaves, mulch and dried blood. His cheap suit was filthy and torn. During the struggle, Augustine had made him dig a short trench with his mandible, so his maw was full of stones and loose soil, like a planter. In addition, he was missing an earlobe, which Augustine had shot off at point-blank range. It was inconceivable to Snapper that such a chickenshit wound could be so excruciating.
Skink said to Augustine: “I thought sure you were going to kill him.”
“It was tempting.”
“My way’s better.”
“After what he did to Jim’s girlfriend?”
“Yes. Even after that.” The governor bowed his head. He was hurting.
Augustine was drained. The adrenaline had emptied out in a clammy torrent. He no longer entertained the idea of murdering Snapper, and doubted if he was even capable of it. An hour ago, yes. Not now. It was probably a good time to leave.
Bonnie studied his expression as he tended her cheeks and brow. “You OK?” she said.
“I don’t know. The way he hurt you—”
“Hey, I asked for it.”
“But you wouldn’t be out here if it weren’t for me.”
Playfully she jabbed a finger in his side. “What makes you so sure? Maybe I’m here because of him.”
Skink grinned but didn’t look up. Augustine had to laugh, too. That’s why we’re both here, he thought. Because of him.
“Would it be bad manners,” Bonnie said to Skink, “if I asked what you plan to do with the money.”
His chin came off his chest. “Oh. That.” Grimacing, he rose from the log. “Lester, you awake? Yo, Lester!”
“Ghhhnungggh.”
The gove
rnor used his feet to push the Frenchman’s suitcase across the clearing to the buttonwood tree, where he kicked the latches open. Snapper regarded the bundled cash with a mixture of undisguised longing and suspicion. He wondered what sick stunt the fucker was cooking up now.
Only the bills on top were wet. Skink swept them aside with his hands. Bonnie and Augustine walked over to see.
The governor said, “You guys want any of this?” They shook their heads.
“Me, neither,” he muttered. “Just more shit to lug around.” He addressed Snapper: “Chief, I’m sure there was a time in your sorry-ass life when ninety-four grand would’ve come in handy. Believe me when I tell you those days are over.”
Skink took a matchbook from his pocket. He asked Bonnie and Augustine to do the honors. Snapper spewed dirt and thrashed inconsolably against the chains.
The money gave off a rich, sweet scent as it burned.
Later he unlocked the truck chain holding Snapper to the tree. Plaintively Snapper pointed at the red brace fastened in his mouth. Skink shook his head.
“Here’s the deal, Lester. Don’t be here when I get back. Do not fuck with my camp, do not fuck with my books. It’s about to rain like hell, so lie back and drink as much as you can. You’ll need it.”
Snapper didn’t respond. Augustine stepped up. He took out the .38 Special and said, “Try to follow us out, I’ll blow your head off.”
Bonnie shuddered. The governor removed a few items from beneath the tarpaulin and placed them in a backpack. Then he lighted the torch and led the others into the trees.
Snapper had no desire to follow; he was glad the crazy fuckers were gone. A gust churned the cinders at his feet, blew a flurry into his lap. He ran his fingers through the ashes, brought a handful to his nose. It didn’t even smell like money anymore.
Later he awoke to the hard rustle of leaves. The rain came driving down. Snapper took the man’s advice. He filled up on it.
At daybreak he would start his march.
They broke a fresh trail through the hardwoods. Bonnie was worried that Snapper would be able to use it to find his way out. “Not across a lake,” Skink said.
She hooked her fingers in Augustine’s belt as they swam. The governor hoisted the torch, his boots and the backpack over his head, to keep them dry. Augustine was astounded that the man could swim so well with a fractured collarbone. The crossing took less than fifteen minutes, though it seemed an eternity to Bonnie. She was unable to convince herself that crocodiles shunned firelight.