Stormy Weather

  “Asshole.” She picked a leaf out of her wet hair and peevishly flicked it into the wind. Swatted a horsefly off her ankle. Folded her arms and glared.

  He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Look on the bright side, girl. You got over your fear of crocodiles.”

  CHAPTER

  30

  At half past noon, a police cruiser stopped at the intersection of Card Sound Road and County Road 905. A broad-shouldered black man in casual street clothes honked twice at Edie Marsh. As he motioned her to the car, she recognized him as the cop whom Snapper had shot outside Paradise Palms.

  “You might not believe this,” she said, “but I’m really glad you’re OK.”

  “Thanks for your concern.” His tone was so neutral that she almost didn’t catch the sarcasm. He wore reflector sunglasses and had a toothpick in the corner of his mouth. When he reached across to open the door, Edie glimpsed a white mat of bandage between the middle buttons of his shirt.

  “You’re Jim, right? I’m Edie.”

  “I figured.”

  He took the road toward Miami. Edie assumed she was being arrested. She said, “For what it’s worth, I didn’t think he would shoot.”

  “Funny thing about morons with guns.”

  “Look, I know where he is. I can show you where he is.”

  Jim Tile said, “I already know.”

  Then she understood. The trooper had no intention of trying to find Snapper. It was over for Snapper.

  “What about me?” she asked, inwardly speculating on the multitude of felonies for which she could be prosecuted. Attempted murder. Fleeing the scene. Aiding and abetting. Auto theft. Not to mention insurance fraud, which the trooper might or might not know about, depending on what the governor had told him.

  “So what happens to me?” she asked again.

  “Last night I got a message saying a lady needed a ride to the mainland.”

  “And you had nothing better to do.”

  From miles behind the sunglasses: “It was an old friend who called.”

  Edie Marsh kept trying to play tough. It wasn’t easy. No other cars were in sight. The guy could rape me, kill me, dump my body in the swamp. Who’d ever know? Plus he was a cop.

  She said, “You didn’t answer my question.”

  The toothpick bobbed. “The answer is: Nothing. Nothing’s going to happen to you. The friend who left a message put in a good word.”

  “Yeah?”

  “‘Jail will not make an impression on this woman. Don’t waste your time.’ That’s a quote.”

  Edie reddened. “Some good word.”

  “So you get a free ride to Florida City. Period.”

  After crossing the Card Sound Bridge, the trooper stopped at Alabama Jack’s. He asked Edie if she wanted a fish sandwich or a burger.

  “I’m barefoot,” she said.

  Finally he broke a smile. “I don’t believe there’s a dress code.”

  Over lunch, Edie Marsh tried again. “I got sick when Snapper pulled the trigger,” she said, “back at the motel, I swear. It’s the last thing I wanted.”

  Jim Tile said it didn’t matter one way or the other. To appear friendly, Edie asked how long he’d been assigned to Miami.

  “Ten days.”

  “You came for the hurricane?”

  “Just like you,” he said, letting her know he had her pegged.

  On their way out of the restaurant, he bought her an extra order of fries and a Coke for the road. In the car, Edie tried to keep the conversation moving. She felt more secure when he was talking, instead of staring ahead like a sphinx, working that damn toothpick.

  She asked if she could see the bulletproof vest. He said he’d had to turn it in at headquarters, for evidence. She asked if the bullet made a hole and he said no, more of a dimple.

  “Bet you didn’t think hurricane duty would be so hairy.”

  Jim Tile fiddled with the squelch on the radio.

  Edie said, “What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen so far?”

  “Besides your geek partner shooting at me?”

  “Yeah, besides that.”

  “The President of the United States,” he said, “trying to hammer a nail into a piece of plywood. Took him at least nine tries.”

  Edie straightened. “You saw the President!”

  “Yeah. We had motorcade duty.”

  Thoughtfully she munched on a French fry. “Did you see his son, too?”

  “They were riding in the same limo.”

  “I didn’t know he lived in Miami, the President’s son.”

  “Lucky him,” the trooper said.

  Edie Marsh, sipping her Coke, trying not to be too obvious: “I wonder where his house is, somebody like that. Key Biscayne probably, or maybe the Gables. Sometimes I wonder about famous people. Where they eat out. Where they get their cars waxed. Who’s their dentist. I mean, think about it: The President’s kid, he still has to get his teeth cleaned. Don’t you ever wonder about stuff like that?”

  “Never.” Fat raindrops slapped on the windshield. Still the trooper stayed camped behind the sunglasses.

  Edie didn’t give up. “You got a girlfriend?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Finally, Edie thought. Something to run with. “Where is she?”

  “In the hospital,” Jim Tile said. “Your buddy beat her to a pulp.”

  “Oh God, no.…”

  He saw that she’d spilled the Coke, and that she didn’t even know it.

  “God, I’m so sorry,” she was saying. “I swear, I didn’t—Will she be all right?”

  Jim Tile offered a handful of paper napkins. Edie tried to sop the soda off her lap. Her hands were shaky.

  “I didn’t know,” she said, more than once. She recalled the engraving on the mother’s wedding band, the one that Snapper had stolen. “Cynthia” was the name on the ring, the mother of the trooper’s girlfriend.

  Now Edie felt close to the crime. Now she felt truly sick.

  Jim Tile said, “The doctors think she’ll be OK.”

  All Edie could do was nod; she was tapped out. The trooper turned up the volume of the police radio. When they reached the mainland, he stopped at a boarded-up McDonald’s. The hurricane had blown out the doors and windows.

  A teal-blue compact was parked under a naked palm tree. A man in a green Day-Glo rain poncho was sitting on the hood; from the sharp creases, it appeared that his poncho was brand-new. The man hopped down when he saw the Highway Patrol car.

  “Who’s that?” Edie asked.

  “Watch out for broken glass,” Jim Tile said.

  “You’re leaving me here?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When Edie Marsh got out, the man got in. The trooper told him to shut the door and fasten his seat belt. Edie didn’t back away from the car; she just stood there, crossing her arms in a halfhearted sulk. The effect was impaired by the slashing rain, which caused her to blink and squint, and by the stormy wind, which made her hair thrash like a pom-pom.

  Through the weather she shouted at Jim Tile: “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “Count your blessings,” he said. Then he made a U-turn and headed back toward Key Largo.

  Bonnie gave Augustine a nervous kiss before she left camp with Skink. Her husband was on his way. They were to meet at the road.

  Alone, Augustine tried to read, huddled in the old ambulance to keep the pages dry. But he couldn’t concentrate. His imagination was inventing dialogue for Bonnie and Max’s reunion. In his head there were two versions of the script; one for a sad good-bye, one for I’m-sorry-let’s-try-again.

  Part of him expected not to see Bonnie again, expected her to change her mind and fly back to New York. Augustine had accustomed himself to such letdowns.

  On the other hand, none of his three ex-fiancées would have lasted so long in the deep woods without a tantrum or a scene. Bonnie Lamb was very different from the others. Augustine hoped she was different enough not to
run away.

  Despite his emotional distress, Augustine kept a watch on Snapper, still zonked from the monkey tranquilizer. It wouldn’t be long before the dumb cracker woke up blathering. Except for the cheap pinstripe suit, he reminded Augustine of the empty-eyed types his father used to hire as boat crew.

  Another thing that got him thinking about his old man was the lousy weather. Augustine recalled a gray September afternoon when his father had dumped sixty bales overboard in the mistaken belief that an oncoming vessel was a Coast Guard patrol, when in fact it was a Hatteras full of hard-drinking surgeons on their way to Cat Cay. The marijuana bobbed on seven-foot swells in the Gulf Stream while Augustine’s father frantically recruited friends, neighbors, cousins, dock rats and Augustine himself for the salvage. Using boat hooks and fish gaffs, they retrieved all but four bales, which were snatched up by the agile crew of a passing Greek tanker. Later that night, when the load was safe and drying in a warehouse, Augustine’s father threw a party for his helpers. Everybody got stoned except Augustine, who was only twelve years old at the time. Already he knew he wasn’t cut out for his old man’s fishing business.

  Augustine climbed out of the ambulance and stretched. A red-tailed hawk hunted in tight circles above the campsite. Augustine walked over to the place where Snapper slept. The governor had left the hurricane money lying in the suitcase, reeking of urine. Augustine nudged Snapper with his shoe. Nothing. He grasped The Club and turned the man’s head back and forth. He was as limp as a rag doll. The motion caused a slight stir and a sleepy gargle, but the eyelids remained closed. Augustine lifted one of Snapper’s hands and pinched a thumbnail, very hard. The guy didn’t flinch.

  Dreamland, thought Augustine. No need to tie him up.

  He found the sight and sound of Lester Maddox Parsons particularly depressing when married to the fear that Bonnie Lamb wasn’t coming back. Sharing camp with a shitbird criminal had no appeal. The smell of fast-moving rain, the high coasting of the hawk, the cool green embrace of the hardwoods—all spoiled by Snapper’s sour presence.

  Augustine couldn’t wait there anymore. It was worse than being alone.

  Jim Tile said, “Where’s the young man?”

  “Library,” said Skink.

  They were in the trooper’s car, near the trail upon which Skink had led Bonnie to the road. She and her husband were sitting side by side on one of the metal rails that ran the perimeter of Crocodile Lakes. The police car was parked seventy-five yards away; it was the best that Jim Tile and Skink could offer for privacy. Even from that distance, in the rain, Max Lamb was highly visible in the neon poncho.

  “His old man’s in prison.” Skink was still talking about Augustine. “You’ll love this: She says he was conceived in a hurricane.”

  “Which one?”

  “Donna.”

  Jim Tile smiled. “That’s something.”

  “Thirty-two years later: another storm, another beginning. The boy’s star-crossed, don’t you think?”

  The trooper chuckled. “I think you’re full of it.” There was affection in the remark. “What’s the story with the father?”

  “Smuggler,” Skink said, “and not a talented one.”

  Jim Tile considered that for a moment. “Well, I like the young man. He’s all right.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  The trooper put on the windshield wipers. They could see—by the movement of the poncho—that Bonnie’s husband was up and pacing.

  “Him I don’t envy,” Jim Tile said.

  Skink shrugged. He hadn’t completely forgiven Max Lamb for bringing his Handycam to Miami. He said, “Lemme see where you got shot.”

  The trooper unbuttoned his shirt and peeled away the bandage. Even with the vest to stop it, the slug had raised a plum-colored bruise on Jim Tile’s sternum. The governor whistled and said, “You and Brenda need a vacation.”

  “They say maybe ten days she’ll be out of the hospital.”

  “Take her to the islands,” Skink suggested.

  “She’s never been to the West. She loves horses.”

  “The mountains, then. Wyoming.”

  The trooper said, “She’d go for that.”

  “Anywhere, Jim. Away from this place is the main thing.”

  “Yeah.” He turned off the wipers. The heavy rain gathered like syrup on the windshield. They did not speak of Snapper.

  “Which one is it?” Max Lamb asked.

  He hoped it was the kidnapper, the wilder one. That would bolster his theory that his wife had lost her mind; a weather-related version of the Stockholm Syndrome. That would make it easier to accept, easier to explain to his friends and parents. Bonnie had been mesmerized by a drug-crazed hermit. Manson minus the Family.

  Bonnie said, “Max, the problem is me.”

  When she knew it wasn’t, not entirely. She’d watched him, after stepping from the police car, jump at the sight of a puny marsh rabbit as if it were a hundred-pound timber wolf.

  Now he was saying, “Bonnie, you’ve been brainwashed.”

  “Nobody—”

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  “Who?”

  “Either of them.”

  “No!” To cover the lie, Bonnie aimed for a tone of indignation.

  “But you wanted to.”

  Max Lamb rose, raindrops beading on the plastic poncho. “You’re telling me that this”—with a mordant sweep of an arm—“you prefer this to the city!”

  She sighed. “I wouldn’t mind seeing a baby crocodile. That’s all I said.” She was aware of how outrageous it must have sounded to someone like Max.

  “He’s got you smoking that shit, doesn’t he?”

  “Oh please.”

  Back and forth he paced. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “Me, neither,” she said. “I’m sorry, Max.”

  He squared his shoulders and spun away, toward the lakes. He was too mad to weep, too insulted to beg. Also, it had dawned on him that Bonnie might be right, that perhaps he didn’t know her very well. Even if she changed her mind and returned with him to New York, he constantly would be worrying that she might flip out again. What happened out here had sprained their relationship, probably permanently.

  Turning to face her, his voice leaden with disappointment, Max said, “I thought you were more … centered.”

  “Me, too.” To argue would only drag things out. Bonnie was determined to be agreeable and apologetic, no matter what he said. She had to leave him with something—if not his pride, then his swollen sense of male superiority. She figured it was a small price, to help get him through the hurt.

  “Last chance,” Max Lamb said. He groped under the bright poncho and pulled out a pair of airline tickets.

  “I’m sorry,” said Bonnie, shaking her head.

  “Do you love me or not?”

  “Max, I don’t know.”

  He tucked the tickets away. “This is unbelievable.”

  She got up and kissed him good-bye. Her eyes were rimmed with tears, though Max probably didn’t notice, with all the raindrops on her face.

  “Call me,” he said bitterly, “when you figure yourself out.”

  Alone, he walked back to the patrol car. The kidnapper held the door for him.

  Max was quiet on the drive back to the mainland; an accusatory silence. The state trooper was friends with the maniac who’d kidnapped Max and brainwashed his wife. The trooper had a moral and legal duty to stop the seduction, or at least try. That was Max’s personal opinion.

  When they got to the boarded-up McDonald’s, Max told him: “You make sure that nutty one-eyed bastard takes care of her.”

  It was meant to carry the weight of a warning, and ordinarily Jim Tile would have been amused at Max’s hubris. But he pitied him for the bad news he was about to deliver.

  “She’ll never see the governor again,” the trooper said, “after today.”

  “Then—”

  “I think you’re confused,” said the
trooper. “The young fella with the skulls, that’s who she fell for.”

  “Jesus.” Max Lamb looked disgusted.

  As Jim Tile drove away, he could see him in the rearview—stomping around the parking lot in the rain, kicking at puddles, flapping like a giant Day-Glo bat.

  They were a mile from the road when Augustine appeared on the trail. Bonnie ran to him. They were still holding each other when Skink announced he was heading back to camp.

  Augustine took Bonnie to the creek. He cleared a dry patch of bank and they sat down. She saw that he’d brought a paperback book from the ambulance.

  “Oh, you’re going to read me sonnets!” She clasped both hands to her breasts, pretending to swoon.

  “Don’t be a smartass,” Augustine said, mussing her hair. “Remember the first time your husband called after the kidnapping—the message he left on the answering machine?”

  Bonnie no longer regarded it as that—a kidnapping—but she supposed it was. Technically.

  Augustine said, “The governor had him read something over the phone. Well, I found it.” He pointed to the title on the spine of the book. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller.

  “Listen,” said Augustine:

  “‘Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy me. Today I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity—I belong to the earth! I say that lying on my pillow and I can feel the horns sprouting from my temples.’”

  He handed the novel to Bonnie. She saw that Skink had underlined the passage in red ink.

  “It’s him, all right.”

  “Or me,” said Augustine. “On a given day.”

  The sky was turning purple and contused. Overhead a string of turkey buzzards coasted on the freshening breeze. In the distance there was a broken tumble of thunder. Augustine asked Bonnie what happened with Max.

  “He’s going back alone,” she said. “You know, it’s crossed my mind that I’m cracking up.” She took out her wedding ring. Augustine figured she was going to either slip it on her finger or toss it in the creek.