Stormy Weather

  “Because I’m a detective,” Augustine said. “Plainclothes.”

  “Oh.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “These four kids pulled up and took the tag off my Camaro. I was out’n the yard, burying the fish—see, when the power went off it took care of the aquarium, so we had dead guppies—”

  “Sailfin mollies!” interjected one of the kids.

  “Anyway, I had to bury the damn things before they stunk up the place. That’s when this Jeep comes up, four colored guys, stereo cranked full blast. They take a screwdriver and set to work on the Camaro. Me standin’ right there!”

  The woman said, “I knew something was wrong. I brought the children inside the bedroom.”

  Her husband dumped two cans of pork and beans into a small pot, which he held over the royal-blue flame of the Sterno. “So I run over with a shovel and say what do you think you’re up to, and one of the brothers flashes a gun and tells me to you-know-what. I didn’t argue, I backed right off. Getting shot over a damn license plate was not on my agenda, you understand.”

  Augustine said, “Then what happened?”

  “They slapped the tag on the Jeep and hauled ass. You could hear that so-called music for about five miles.”

  The wife added, “David’s got a pistol and he knows how to use it. But—”

  “Not over a thirty-dollar license plate,” said her husband.

  Augustine commended David for being so levelheaded. “Let me double-check the tag number.” He took out the folded piece of paper and read it aloud: “BZQ-42F.”

  “Right,” said David, “but it’s not on that Jeep no more.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw it the other day, goin’ down Calusa.”

  “The same one?”

  “Black Cherokee. Mags, tinted windows. I’d bet the farm it’s the same truck. I could tell by the mud flaps.”

  The woman frowned. “Tell him about those.”

  “Mud flaps like what you see on them eighteen-wheelers. You know, fancy, with naked ladies.”

  “In chrome,” the woman said. “That’s how we knew it was the same one—”

  Augustine said, “Where’s Calusa?”

  “—only some white guy was driving it.”

  “What’d he look like?”

  “Not friendly,” said the husband.

  The wife said, “Watch the beans, David. And tell him about the music.”

  “That’s the other thing,” David said, stirring the pot. “He had that damn stereo all the way loud, same as the colored kids. Only it wasn’t rap music, it was Travis Tritt. I thought it was weird, this guy in a business suit and a niggered-up Jeep, listenin’ to Travis Tritt.”

  “David!” The woman reddened with genuine offense. Augustine liked her. He surmised that she was the strength of the outfit.

  Her husband, halfway apologizing for the slur: “Aw, you know what I mean. All that chrome and tint, the guy didn’t fit.”

  Augustine recalled Brenda Rourke’s description of the attacker. “You’re sure about the suit?”

  “Clear as day.”

  The woman said, “We figured maybe he’s the boss. Maybe the kids who stolt our license plate work for him.”

  “It’s possible,” said Augustine. He sort of enjoyed playing a cop, ferreting fresh trails.

  “You say he looked unfriendly. What do you mean?”

  David spooned the pork and beans into matching ceramic bowls. “His face,” he said. “You wouldn’t forget it.”

  The wife said, “We were on our way to the Circle K for ice. At first I thought he had on a Halloween mask, the man in the Jeep. That’s how odd he was—wait, Jeremy, that’s too hot!” She intercepted her youngest son, lunging for the beans.

  Augustine thanked them, on behalf of the Metropolitan Dade County Police, for their cooperation. He promised to do his best to retrieve the stolen license plate. “I’ve only got one more question.”

  “Where’s Calusa?” said David, smiling.

  “Exactly.”

  “Margo can do you a map. Use one them napkins.”

  Avila’s wife found him writhing on the floor of the garage, near the Buick. He was bleeding from a large puncture in the groin. One of the sacrificial billy goats, anticipating its fate, had gored him.

  “Where are they?” demanded Avila’s wife, in Spanish.

  Through clenched teeth, Avila confessed that both goats had escaped.

  “I tole you! I tole you!” his wife cried, switching to English. She rolled Avila on his back and opened his trousers to examine the injury. “Chew need a tennis shot,” she said.

  “Take me to the doctor.”

  “Not in my car! I done wanno blood on de 'polstery.”

  “Then help me to the goddamn truck.”

  “Chew a mess.”

  “You want me to die right here on the floor? Is that what you want?”

  Avila had purchased the billy goats from the nephew of a santero priest in Sweetwater. The nephew owned a farm on which he raised fighting cocks and livestock for religious oblations. The two goats had cost Avila a total of three hundred dollars, and they didn’t get along. They’d butted heads and kicked at each other continually on the return trip to Avila’s house. Somehow he had managed to wrestle both animals into the open garage, but before he could attach the tethers and shut the door, a liquid wildness had come into their huge amber eyes. Avila wondered if they’d sensed Chango’s supernatural presence, or merely smelled the blood and entrails from past santería offerings. In any event, the goats went absolutely berserk and destroyed a perfectly good riding mower, among other items. The larger of the two billies gouged Avila cleanly with a horn before clacking off into the neighborhood.

  Avila’s wife scolded him zealously on the drive to the hospital. “Three hunnert bucks! Chew fucking crazy!” When swearing she customarily dropped her Spanish for English, due to the richer, more emphatic variety of profanities.

  Avila snarled back: “Don’t talk to me about money. You and mamí been losin’ your fat asses at the Miccosukee bingo, no? So don’t talk to me about crazy.”

  He checked the wound in his groin; it was the size of a fifty-cent piece. The bleeding had stopped, but the pain was fiery. He felt clammy and light-headed.

  Oh, Chango, Avila thought. What have I done to anger you?

  In the emergency room, a businesslike nurse eased him onto a gurney and connected him to a glorious bag of I.V. Demerol. Avila told the doctor that he’d fallen on a rusty lawn sprinkler. The doctor said he was lucky it didn’t sever an artery. He asked about the dirty bandage on Avila’s left hand, and Avila said it was a nasty golfing blister. Nothing to worry about.

  As the pain receded, his mind drifted into a fuzzy free fall. Snapper’s lopsided face appeared in a cloud.

  I will find you, coño! Avila vowed.

  But how?

  Dreamily he recalled the night they’d first met. It was in a supper club on LeJeune Road. Snapper was at the bar with two women from an escort service. The women wore caked mascara and towering hair. Avila made friends. He had cash in his pocket, having moments earlier collected a bribe from a fellow who retailed fiberglass roof shingles of questionable durability. The hookers told Avila the name of the escort service was Gentlemen’s Choice, and it was open seven days a week. They said Snapper was a regular customer, one of their best. They said he was taking them out on the town to celebrate, on account he was going off to prison for three to five years and wouldn’t be getting much pussy, professional or otherwise. Snapper told Avila he’d killed some shithead dope dealer that nobody cared about. Prosecutors had let him cop to a manslaughter-one, and with any luck he’d get out of the joint in twenty months. Avila didn’t believe a word the guy was saying, but he thought the manslaughter routine was a pretty good line to use on the babes. He bought several rounds of drinks for Snapper and the prostitutes, in hopes that Snapper might start feeling generous. And that’s exactly what
happened. When Avila returned from the men’s room, the one he liked—a gregarious platinum blonde, Morganna was her name—whispered in his ear that Snapper said it was OK, as long as Avila paid his share. So they’d all gone to a fleabag motel on West Flagler and had quite a time. Morganna proved full of energy and imagination, well worth the shingle money.

  Narcotic memories took Avila’s mind off the vigorous suturing that was being done on a freshly shaved triangle five inches due southwest of his navel. Then, giddily, it came to him from out of the clouds—one obvious way for Avila to track that cocksucker Snapper and recover the seven grand.

  A lead, is what cops would call it.

  Not exactly a red-hot lead, but better than nothing.

  Another curious neighbor dropped by, asking about Tony. Edie Marsh used the same ludicrous story about being a distant Torres cousin who was watching the place as a favor. She made no effort to explain Snapper, snoring in the recliner, a gun on his lap.

  Fred Dove drove up a few minutes later, while Edie was walking Donald and Marla in the front yard. The insurance man looked more cheerless and pallid than ever. From the way he snatched the briefcase off the seat of the car, Edie sensed an urgency to his gloom.

  “My supervisor,” he announced, “wants to see the house.”

  “Is he suspicious?”

  “No. Routine claims review.”

  “Then what’s the problem, Fred? Show him the house.”

  He gave a bitter laugh and spun away. Edie tied up the dogs and followed him inside.

  “The problem is,” Fred Dove said, “Mister Reedy will want to chat with ‘Mister and Mrs. Torres.’” Loudly he dropped his briefcase on the kitchen counter, rousing Snapper.

  Edie said, “Don’t panic. We can handle it.”

  “Don’t panic? The company wants to know why I got kicked out of the motel. My wife wants to know where I’m staying, and with whom. Dennis Reedy will be here tomorrow to interview two claimants that I cannot produce. Personally, I think it’s an excellent time to panic.”

  “Hey, Santy Claus!” It was Snapper, hollering from the living room. “You got the insurance check?”

  Edie Marsh went to the doorway and said, “Not yet.”

  “Then shut him up.”

  Fred Dove dropped his voice. “I can’t stay here with that maniac. It’s impossible.”

  “His leg hurts,” said Edie. She had given Snapper the last of her Darvons, which evidently were beginning to wear off. “Look, I’m not thrilled about the setup, either. But it’s this or go camp in the woods.”

  The insurance man removed his glasses and pressed his thumbs against his temples. A mosquito landed on one of his eyelids. He shook his head like a spaniel until it floated away. “We can’t go through with this,” he said, dolorously.

  “Yes we can, sweetie. I’ll be Mrs. Torres. Snapper is Tony.”

  Fred Dove sagged. “You don’t exactly look Cuban. Neither of you, for God’s sake.” He punched a cabinet door and cried out, “What was I thinking!”

  Snapper declared that Fred Dove was on the brink of dismemberment unless he immediately shut the fuck up. Edie Marsh led the distraught insurance man into Neria’s bedroom closet. She shut the door and kissed him with expert tenderness. Simultaneously she unzipped his pants. Fred jumped at her touch, warm but unexpected. Edie squeezed gently, until he was calm and quite helpless.

  “This Dennis Reedy,” she whispered, “what’s he like?”

  Fred Dove squirmed pleasurably.

  “Tough guy? Tightass? What’s his deal?”

  “He seems all right,” the insurance man said. He’d dealt with Reedy only once, in a flooded subdivision outside Dallas. Reedy was gruff but fair. He had approved most of Fred Dove’s damage estimates, with only minor adjustments.

  Edie’s free hand pulled down Fred’s pants. She said, “We’ll go over the claim papers tonight, in case he makes it a quiz.”

  “What about Snapper?”

  “Let me handle that. We’ll have a rehearsal.”

  “What are you doing?” The insurance man nearly lost his balance.

  “What does it look like, Fred. Will Mister Reedy have our check?”

  In stuporous bliss, Fred Dove gazed at the top of Edie’s head. Fingers explored her silken hair; his own fingers, judging by the familiar gold wedding band and the University of Nebraska class ring. Fred Dove struggled for clarity. It was no time for an out-of-body experience; for this long-awaited moment, he wanted sensual acuity and superior muscle control.

  The insurance man struggled to purge his mind of worry and guilt, to make way for oncoming ecstasy. He inhaled deeply. The closet smelled of old gardenias and mildew: Neria Torres’s pre-professor wardrobe, damp and musty from the storm. Fred Dove felt stifled, though a vital part of him was not.

  Without using her hands, Edie Marsh leaned him against the wall for leverage. He released her hair and rapturously locked a monkey grip on the wooden dowel. His upturned face was obstructed by the silken armpit of somebody’s wedding gown.

  Suddenly he had a humiliating flashback to what had happened the last time, when Snapper interrupted them on the floor of the living room. To prevent a recurrence, Fred groped for the doorknob and held it shut.

  From below, Edie Marsh paused to inquire again: “Will Reedy have the settlement check?”

  “N-no. The check always comes from Omaha.”

  “Shit.”

  Fred Dove wasn’t sure whether he heard her say it, or felt her say it. The important thing was, she didn’t stop.

  When Augustine came out to the truck, Bonnie Lamb and the governor were gone. He found them a few blocks away, behind a deserted hurricane house. Skink was kneeling next to a swimming pool, scooping chubby brown toads out of the rancid water and slipping them into his pockets. Bonnie was busy fending off the mosquitoes that hovered in an inky cloud around her face.

  Augustine related what he’d learned about the black Jeep Cherokee. Skink said, “Where’s Calusa Drive?”

  “They drew me a map.”

  “Are we going now?” Bonnie asked.

  “Tomorrow,” Skink said. “We’ll need daylight.”

  He and Augustine decided to spend the night nearby. They found an empty field and built a campfire from storm debris. Nearby another small fire glowed, flickering from the mouth of a fifty-five-gallon drum—itinerant laborers from Ohio. Two of them wandered over in search of crack. Augustine spooked them off with a casual display of the .38. Skink disappeared with the toads into a scrubby palmetto thicket.

  Bonnie said, “What’s DMT?”

  “A Wall Street drug,” Augustine replied. “Before our time.”

  “He said he dries the toad poison and smokes it. He said it’s a chemical strain of DMT.”

  “I believe I’ll stick to beer.” Augustine got two sleeping bags from the cab of the truck. He shook them out and spread them near the fire.

  She said, “I’m sorry about last night.”

  “Quit saying that.” Like it would have been the worst mistake of her entire life.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said.

  Augustine arranged some dead branches on the fire. “Nothing’s wrong with you, Bonnie. You’re so normal it’s scary.” He sat cross-legged on one of the sleeping bags.

  “Come here,” he said. When he put his arms around her, she felt completely relaxed and secure. Then he said: “I can take you to the airport.”

  “No!”

  “Because after tonight, you’ll be in the thick of it.”

  Bonnie Lamb said, “That’s what I want. Max got his adventure, I want mine.”

  A reedy howl rose from the palmettos, diffusing into a creepy rumble of laughter.

  Bufo madness, thought Augustine. Bonnie stiffened in his embrace. Firmly she said, “I’m not leaving now. No way.”

  He lifted her chin. “This is not a well person. This is a man who put a shock collar on your husband, a man who gets high off frog sli
me. He’s done things you don’t want to know about, probably even killed people.”

  “At least he believes in something.”

  “Good Lord, Bonnie.”

  “Then why are you here? If he’s so dangerous, if he’s so crazy—”

  “Who said he was crazy.”

  “Answer the question, Señor Herrera.”

  Augustine blinked at the firelight. “I’m not so tightly wrapped myself. That should be obvious.”

  Bonnie Lamb pressed closer. She wondered why she so enjoyed the fact that both of these new men were unpredictable and impulsive—opposites of the man she’d married. Max was exceptionally reliable, but he was neither deep nor enigmatic. Five minutes with Max and you had the whole menu.

  She said, “I suppose I’m rebelling. Against what, I don’t know. It’s a first for me.”

  Augustine rebuked himself for showing off with the skulls; what woman could resist such charm? Bonnie laughed softly.

  “Seriously,” he said, “there’s a big difference between your situation and mine. You’ve got a husband and a life. I’ve got nothing else to do, and nothing to lose by not doing it.”

  “Your uncle’s animals?”

  “Long gone,” he said. “Anyway, there’s worse places than Miami to be for a monkey. They’ll make out fine.” After a rueful pause: “I do feel lousy about the water buffalo.”

  Bonnie said there was no point trying to analyze motivation. Both of them were rational, mature, intelligent adults. Certainly they knew what they were doing, even if they didn’t know why.

  From the thicket, another penetrating wail.

  Bonnie stared toward the palmettos. “I get the feeling he could take us or leave us.”

  “Exactly.” Augustine came right out and asked her if she truly loved her husband.

  She answered unhesitantly: “I don’t know. So there.”

  Without warning, the governor crashed shirtless out of the trees. He was feverish, drenched in sweat. His good eye was as bright as a radish; the glass one was turned askew, showing yellowed bone in the socket. Bonnie hurried to his side.