Bud Schwartz ambled in, looking settled and well rested. He was spooning out half a grapefruit, cupped in the palm of one hand. “Do you believe this fucking place?” he said to Danny Pogue. “What a gas.”
“We gotta get out.”
“How come?”
“Just look.” Danny Pogue pointed out the window.
“So now you got a problem with senior citizens? What—they don’t have the right to have fun? Besides, there’s some young people that live here, too. I saw a couple a hot ones out by the swimming pool. Major titties.”
“I don’t care,” mumbled Danny Pogue.
“Hey,” Bud Schwartz said. “She shot your foot, not your weenie.”
“Where is she?”
“Long gone. You want some lunch? She loaded up at the Publix, you should see. Steaks, chops, beer—we’re set for a couple a weeks, easy.”
Danny Pogue hopped back to the bed and peeled off the damp shirt. He spotted a brand-new pair of crutches propped in the corner. He said, “Bud, I’m gonna split. Seriously, I’m taking off.”
“I can give you ten thousand reasons not to.”
“Speaking of which.”
“She’s bringing a grand for each of us, just like she promised,” said Bud Schwartz. “Good faith money is what she called it.”
“Invisible is what I call it.”
“Hey, lighten the fuck up. She’s an old lady, Danny. Old ladies never lie.” Bud Schwartz lobbed the grapefruit skin into some kind of designer wastebasket. “What’s wrong with you, man? This is like a vacation, all expenses paid. Look at this freaking condo—two bedrooms, two bathrooms. Microwave in the kitchen, Cinemax on the cable. Say what you will, the old geezer knows how to live.”
“Who is she?” Danny Pogue asked.
“Who cares?”
“I care. She shot me.”
Bud Schwartz said, “Just some crazy, rich old broad. Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s not you that got shot.”
“She won’t do it again, Danny. She got it out of her system.” Bud Schwartz wiped his hands on the butt of his jeans to get the grapefruit juice off. He said, “She was pissed, that’s all. On account of us losing the rats.”
Danny Pogue said, “Well, screw that deal. I’m leaving.” He made a move for the crutches but faltered, hot and dizzy. Molly McNamara had fed him some pain pills late last night; that much he remembered.
“I don’t know where you think you’re going,” said Bud Schwartz. “The truck’s history.”
“I’ll hitch,” said Danny Pogue woozily.
“Look in the mirror. Your own mother wouldn’t pick you up. The Hell’s Fucking Angels wouldn’t pick you up.”
“Somebody’ll stop,” Danny Pogue said. “Especially with me on them crutches.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Maybe even some girls.” Danny Pogue eased himself back on the pillow. He took deep breaths and tried to blink away the haze in his brain.
“Have another codeine,” said Bud Schwartz. “Here, she got a whole bottle.” He went to the kitchen and came back with a cold Busch.
Danny Pogue swallowed two more pills and slurped at the beer can noisily. He closed his eyes and said, “She ain’t never gonna pay us, Bud.”
“Sure she is,” said his partner. “She’s loaded, just look at this place. You should see the size of the TV.”
“We better get away while we can.”
“Go back to sleep,” said Bud Schwartz. “I’ll be down at the pool.”
The Mothers of Wilderness met every other Tuesday at a public library in Cutler Ridge. This week the main item on the agenda was the proposed bulldozing of seventy-three acres of mangroves to make room for the back nine of a championship golf course on the shore of North Key Largo. The Mothers of Wilderness strenuously opposed the project, and had begun to map a political strategy to obstruct it. They pursued such crusades with unflagging optimism, despite the fact that they had never succeeded in stopping a single development. Not one. The builders ignored them. Zoning boards ignored them. County commissioners listened politely, nodded intently, then ignored them, too. Of all the environmental groups fighting to preserve what little remained of Florida, the Mothers of Wilderness was regarded as the most radical and shrill and intractable. It was also, unfortunately, the smallest of the groups and thus the easiest to brush off.