If only it were true, thought Ira Jackson. Experience had taught him otherwise. Bozos who rob liquor stores go to jail, not rich guys and bureaucrats and civil servants.
Ira Jackson thumbed through the trailer-court records until he found the name of the man who had botched the inspection of his mother’s double-wide. He fought his way to the file counter and cornered a harried-looking clerk, who informed him that Mr. Avila no longer was employed by Dade County.
Why not? Ira Jackson asked.
Because he quit, the clerk explained; started his own business. Since Ira Jackson was already agitated, the clerk saw no point in revealing that Avila’s resignation was part of a plea-bargain agreement with the State Attorney’s Office. That was a private matter that Mr. Avila himself should share with Mr. Jackson, if he so desired.
Ira Jackson said, “You got a current address, right?”
The clerk said it was beyond his authority to divulge that information. Ira Jackson reached across the counter and rested his hand, very lightly, on the young man’s shoulder. “Listen to me, Paco,” he said. “I’ll come to your home. I’ll harm your family. You understand? Even your pets.”
The clerk nodded. “Be right back,” he said.
Snapper was more annoyed than afraid when he saw the flashing blue lights in the rearview. He’d figured the Jeep Cherokee was already hot when he swiped it from the gangster rappers; he didn’t figure the cops would be looking for it so soon. Not with all the hurricane emergencies.
Pulling to the side of the road, he wondered if Baby Raper had blabbed when he got to the hospital. No doubt the kid was ticked when Snapper retrofitted that compact disc up his ass, like a big shiny suppository.
But why would the cops care about that? Snapper thought: Maybe it’s got nothing do with the gangster rapper or the stolen Jeep. Maybe it’s just my driving.
The cop who stopped him was a female Highway Patrol trooper. She had pleasant features and pretty pale-blue eyes that reminded Snapper of a girl he’d tried to date back in Atlanta, some sort of turbocharged Catholic. The lady trooper’s dark hair was pulled up under her hat, and she wore a gold wedding band that cried out for pawning. The holster appeared oversized and out of place on her hip. She shined a light in the Jeep and asked to see Snapper’s driver’s license.
“I left my wallet at home.”
“No identification?”
“’Fraid not.” For effect, he patted his pockets.
“What’s your name?”
“Boris,” said Snapper. He loved Boris and Natasha, from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle TV show.
“Boris what?” the trooper asked.
Snapper couldn’t spell the cartoon Boris’s last name, so he said, “Smith. Boris J. Smith.”
The trooper’s pale eyes seemed to darken, and the tone of her voice flattened. “Sir, I clocked you at seventy in a forty-five-mile-per-hour zone.”
“No kidding.” Snapper felt relieved. A stupid speeding ticket! Maybe she’d write him up without running the tag.
The trooper said: “It’s against the law to operate a motor vehicle in Florida without a valid license. You’re aware of that.”
OK, Snapper thought, two tickets. Big fucking deal. But he noticed she wasn’t calling him “Mister Smith.”
“You’re also aware that it’s illegal to give false information to a law-enforcement officer?”
“Sure.” Snapper cursed to himself. The bitch wasn’t buying it.
“Stay in your vehicle, please.”
In the mirror, Snapper watched the flashlight bobbing as the trooper walked back to her car. Undoubtedly she intended to call in the license plate on the Cherokee. Snapper felt his shoulders tighten. He had as much chance of explaining the stolen vehicle as he did explaining the seven thousand dollars in his suit.
He saw two choices. The first was to flee the scene, which was guaranteed to result in a chase, a messy crash and an arrest on numerous nonbondable felonies.
The second choice was to stop the lady trooper before she got on the radio. Which is what he did.
Some cons wouldn’t hit a woman, but Snapper was neutral on the issue. A cop was a cop. The trooper spotted him coming but, encumbered by the steering wheel, had difficulty pulling that enormous Smith & Wesson out of its holster. She managed to get the snap undone, but by then it was good-night-nurse.
He took the flashlight, the gun and the wedding band, and left the trooper lying unconscious by the side of the road. Speeding away, he noticed a smudge of color on one of his knuckles.
Makeup, it looked like.
He didn’t feel shame, regret or anything much at all.
Edie Marsh was beginning to appreciate the suffering of real hurricane victims. It rained three times during the day, leaving dirty puddles throughout the Torres house. The carpets squished underfoot, green frogs vaulted from wall to wall, and mosquitoes were hatching in one of the bathroom sinks. Even after the cloudbursts stopped, the exposed beams dripped for hours. Combined with the cacophony of neighborhood hammers and chain saws, the racket was driving Edie nuts. She walked outside and called halfheartedly for the missing dachshunds, an exercise that she abandoned swiftly after spying a fat brown snake. Edie’s scream attracted a neighbor, who took a broom and scared the snake away. Then he inquired about Tony and Neria.
They’re out of town, said Edie Marsh. They asked me to watch the place.
And you are …?
A cousin, Edie replied, knowing she looked about as Latin as Goldie Hawn.
As soon as the neighbor left, Edie hurried into the house and stationed herself in Tony’s recliner. She turned up the radio and laid the crowbar within arm’s reach. When darkness came, the hammering and sawing stopped, and the noises of the neighborhood changed to bawling babies, scratchy radios and slamming doors. Edie began worrying about looters and rapists and the unknown predator that had slurped poor Donald and Marla like Tic Tacs. By the time Fred Dove showed up, she was a basket of nerves.
The insurance man brought a corsage of gardenias. Like he was picking her up for the prom!
Edie Marsh said, “You can’t be serious.”
“What’s wrong? I couldn’t find roses.”
“Fred, I can’t stay here anymore. Get me a room.”
“Everything’s going to be fine. Look, I brought wine.”
“Fred?”
“And scented candles.”
“Yo, Fred!”
“What?”
Edie steered him to a soggy sofa and sat him down. “Fred, this is business, not romance.”
He looked hurt.
“Sweetie,” she said, “we had sexual intercourse exactly one time. Don’t worry, there’s every chance in the world we’ll do it again. But it isn’t love and it isn’t passion. It’s a financial partnership.”
The insurance man said, “You seduced me.”
“Of course I did. And you were fantastic.”
As Fred Dove’s ego reinflated, his posture improved.
“But no more flowers,” Edie scolded, “and no more wine. Just get me a room at the damn Ramada, OK?”
The insurance man solemnly agreed. “First thing tomorrow.”
“Look at this place, honey. No roof. No glass in the windows. It’s not a house, it’s a damn cabana!”
“You’re right, Edie, you can’t stay here. I’ll rejigger the expense account.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fred, don’t be so anal. We’re about to rip off your employer for a hundred and forty-one thousand bucks, and you’re pitching a hissy fit over a sixty-dollar motel room. Think about it.”
“Please don’t get angry.”
“You’ve got the claim papers?”
“Right here.”
After scanning the figures, Edie Marsh felt better. She plucked the gardenias from the corsage and arranged them in a coffeepot, which was full of lukewarm rainwater. She opened the bottle of Chablis, and they toasted to a successful venture. After four glasses, Edie felt comfortable eno
ugh to ask what the insurance man planned to do with his cut of the money.
“Buy a boat,” Fred Dove said, “and sail to Bimini.”
“What about wifey?”
“Who?” said Fred Dove. They laughed together. Then he asked Edie Marsh how she was going to spend her seventy-one grand.
“Hyannis Port,” she said, without elaboration.
Later, when the Chablis was gone, Edie dragged a dry mattress into the living room, turned off the lightbulb and lit one of Fred Dove’s candles, which smelled like malted milk. As Edie took off her clothes, she heard Fred groping inside his briefcase for a rubber. He tore the foil with his teeth and pressed the package into her hand.
Even when she was sober, condoms made Edie laugh. When drunk she found them downright hilarious, the silliest contraptions imaginable. For tonight Fred Dove had boldly chosen a red one, and Edie was no help whatsoever in putting it on. Neither, for that matter, was Fred. Edie’s tittering had pretty well shattered the mood, undoing all the good work of the wine.
Flat on his back, the insurance man turned his head away. Edie Marsh slapped his legs apart and knelt between them. “Don’t you quit on me,” she scolded. “Pay attention, sweetie. Come on.” Firmly she took hold of him.
“Could you just—?”
“No.” It was always bad form to giggle in the middle of a blow job, and Fred Dove was the sort who’d never recover, emotionally. “Focus,” she instructed him. “Remember how good it was last night.”
Edie had gotten the condom partially deployed when she heard the electric generator cut off. Out of fuel, she figured. It could wait; Fred Jr. was showing signs of life.
She heard a soft click, and suddenly the insurance man’s festively crowned penis was illuminated in a circle of bright light. Edie Marsh let go and sat upright. Fred Dove, his eyes shut tightly in concentration, said, “Don’t stop now.”
In the front doorway stood a man with a powerful flashlight.
“Candles,” he said. “That’s real fuckin’ cozy.”
Fred Dove’s chest stopped moving, and one hand fumbled for his eyeglasses. Edie Marsh got up and folded her arms across her breasts. She said, “Thanks for knocking, asshole.”
“I came back for my car.” Snapper played the light up and down her body.
“It’s in the driveway, right where you left it.”
“What’s the hurry,” said Snapper, stepping into the house.
Bonnie Lamb went to Augustine’s room at one-thirty in the morning. She climbed under the sheets without brushing against him even slightly. It wasn’t easy, in a twin bed.
She whispered, “Are you sleeping?”
“Like a log.”
“Sorry.”
He rolled over to face her. “You need a pillow?”
“I need a hug.”
“Bad idea.”
“Why?”
“I’m slightly on the naked side. I wasn’t expecting company.”
“Apology number two,” she said.
“Close your eyes, Mrs. Lamb.” He got up and pulled on a pair of loose khakis. No shirt, she observed, unalarmed. He slipped under the covers and held her. His skin was warm and smooth against her cheek, and when he moved she felt a taut, shifting wedge of muscle. Max’s physical topography was entirely different, but Bonnie pushed the thought from her mind. It wasn’t fair to compare hugging prowess. Not now.
She asked Augustine if he’d ever been married. He said no.
“Engaged?”
“Three times.”
Bonnie raised her head. “You’re kidding.”
“Unfortunately not.” In the artificial twilight, Augustine saw she was smiling. “This amuses you?”
“Intrigues me,” she said. “Three times?”
“They all came to their senses.”
“We’re talking about three different women. No repeats?”
“Correct,” said Augustine.
“I’ve got to ask what happened. You don’t have to answer, but I’ve got to ask.”
“Well, the first one married a successful personal-injury lawyer—he’s doing class-action breast-implant litigation; the second one started an architecture firm and is currently a mistress to a Venezuelan cabinet minister; and the third one is starring on a popular Cuban soap opera—she plays Miriam, the jealous schizophrenic. So I would say,” Augustine concluded, “that each of them made a wise decision by ending our relationship.”
Bonnie Lamb said, “I bet you let them keep the engagement rings.”
“Hey, it’s only money.”
“And you still watch the soap opera, don’t you?”
“She’s quite good in it. Very convincing.”
Bonnie said, “What an unusual guy.”
“You feeling better? My personal problems always seem to cheer people up.”
She put her head down. “I’m worried about tomorrow, about seeing Max again.”
Augustine told her it was normal to be nervous. “I’m a little antsy myself.”
“Will you bring the gun?”
“Let’s play it by ear.” He seriously doubted if the governor would appear, much less deliver Bonnie’s husband.
“Are you scared?” When she spoke, he could feel her soft breath on his chest.
“Restless,” he said, “not scared.”
“Hey.”
“Hey what?”
“You getting excited?”
Augustine shifted in embarrassment. What did she expect? He said, “My turn to apologize.”
But she didn’t move. So he took a slow quiet breath and tried to focus on something else … say, Uncle Felix’s fugitive monkeys. How far had they scattered? How were they coping with freedom?
Augustine’s self-imposed pondering was interrupted when Bonnie Lamb said: “What if Max is different now? Maybe something’s happened to him.”
Augustine thought: Something’s happened, all right. You can damn sure bet on it.
But what he told Bonnie was: “Your husband’s hanging in there. You wait and see.”
CHAPTER
12
Skink said, “Care for some toad?”
The shock collar had done its job; Max Lamb was unconditionally conditioned. If the captain wanted him to smoke toad, he would smoke toad.
“It’s an offer, not a command,” Skink said, by way of clarification.
“Then no, thanks.”
Max Lamb squinted into the warm salty night. Somewhere out there, Bonnie was searching. Max was neither as anxious nor as hopeful as he should have been, and he wondered why; his reaction to practically every circumstance was muted, as if key brain synapses had been cauterized by the ordeal of the kidnapping. For instance, he had failed to raise even a meek objection at the Key Biscayne golf course, where they’d stopped to free the Asian scorpion. Skink had tenderly deposited the venomous bug in the cup on the eighteenth green. “The mayor’s favorite course,” he’d explained. “Call me an optimist.” Max had stood by wordlessly.
Now they were on a wooden stilt house in the middle of the bay. Skink dangled his long legs off the end of a dock, which was twisted and buckled like a Chinese parade dragon. The hurricane had sucked the wooden pilings from their holes. Most of the other stilt houses were shorn at the stems, but this one had outlasted the storm, though barely. It lurched and creaked in the thickish breeze; Max Lamb suspected it was sinking with the tide. Skink said the house belonged to a man who’d retired on disability from the State Attorney’s Office. The man recently had married a beautiful twelve-string guitarist and moved to the island of Exuma.
Under a swinging lantern, Skink lighted another exotic-smelling joint; marijuana and French onion soup, thought Max Lamb. Something strong and cheesy.
“The toad itself is toxic,” Skink explained. “Bufo marinus. A South American import—overran the local species. Sound familiar?” He took a long sibilant drag. “The glands of Señor Bufo perspire a milky sap that can kill a full-grown Doberman in six minutes flat.” br />
To Max, it didn’t sound like a substance that one should be inhaling.
“There’s a special process,” Skink said, “of extraction.” He took another huge hit.
“What does it do, this toad sap?”
“Nothing. Everything. What all good drugs do, I suppose. Psychoneurotic roulette.” Skink’s chin dropped to his chest. His good eye fluttered and closed. His breathing rose to a startling volume; the exhalations sounded like the brakes of a subway train. For fifteen minutes Max Lamb didn’t make a move; the notion to escape never occurred to him, such was the Pavlovian influence of the collar.
In the interval of enforced suspension, Max’s thoughts drifted to Bill Knapp up at Rodale. The scheming viper undoubtedly had his sights on Max’s corner office, with its partially obstructed but nonetheless energizing view of Madison Avenue. Each day lost to the ambivalent kidnapper was a potential day of advancement for Billy the Backstabber; Max Lamb was burning to return to the agency and crush the devious little fucker’s ambitions. Brutal humiliation was called for, and Max hoped he was up to the task. Darkly he imagined Billy Knapp a jobless, wifeless, homeless, toothless wretch, hunched over a can of Sterno in a wintry alley, sucking on a moist spliff laced with poisonous toad sweat.…
When Skink snapped awake, he coughed hard and flipped the butt of the dead joint into the storm-silted water. Not far from the house, the broken mast of a submerged sailboat protruded from the waves. Skink pointed at the ghostly wreck but said nothing. His leathery finger stayed in the air for an exceptionally long time.