Smoke jumped up from the bed, his bare chest covered with tattoos and beaded with sweat. His eyes were glassy, and the only thing worse than Smoke was Smoke when he was high and needed to sleep it off.
“Pop-eye, ” Smoke said with a cruel laugh as he pretended to inject Popeye with the syringe.
“Forget the fucking dog for a minute, ” Possum said, faking the bad act he had gotten fairly good at.
“Don’t you fucking tell me to fucking forget anything, you little retard, ” Smoke said, pointing the needle at Possum as if he might just inject him instead of Popeye. “See, this is how Smoke makes assholes pay for their sins. Right when that bitch Hammer and her fuckhead sidekick Brazil come rushing up to the pit to save the stupid dog, I whip out this syringe and inject Popeye with rat poison right in front of them. While they’re busy trying to save the dog, which will instantly go into convulsions and be in terrible pain, we shoot them in the head and run for the helicopter. ”
The scenario was unspeakably horrible, but Possum played up to his name and had no reaction. In fact, he looked half asleep and inattentive to everything except the opportunity to seize the Tory Treasure before anyone else got it first.
“Or if one of them fishermen gets the treasure ‘fore we show up after the race, ” Possum said, “then we just wait for them back on the island and blow their brains out and dump their bodies in the bay and take the prize for ourselves. And Cat will already be there with everything set up, which is why he ain’t here now, and we even got our own trooper working for us, too. Man, everything’s phat, Smoke, ” Possum bragged.
Regina felt everything was fat, too, but not in a good way, as she made her way down to the breakfast table later that morning. She had suffered another terrible night of tire dreams and was at last facing the truth: Andy’s interpretation was right. Life was passing her by. She was disgustingly fat and had a rotten personality. For the first time in her life, Regina’s conscience stirred and she felt a twinge of shame and regret.
“Good morning, ” Pony said as Regina sullenly pulled out a chair and plopped down in it.
“Are you telling me it is or wishing it or just saying words that are meaningless?” Regina muttered, eyeing the steaming food Pony was setting on the table.
“Seems like a good morning to me, ” Pony replied cheerfully. “I’m on my way to being a free man, Miss Reginia! Only thing is”–he served scrambled eggs and link sausage on a plate shining with the gold Commonwealth of Virginia seal–“turns out I been in prison three years longer than I was s’posed to be ’cause of that Mr. Trader. Seems he did some messing with certain officials ’cause he didn’t want me let out. ”
Regina stared at her food and realized with surprise that she wasn’t hungry. She couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t been hungry, unless it was when she had been sped to the hospital after eating Trader’s poisoned Toll House cookies. But her loss of appetite then had been transient and medically based and couldn’t be related to her present condition.
“You aren’t eating, Miss Reginia, ” Pony worried, standing across the table from her in his stiff white jacket, a linen napkin draped over an arm.
“You shouldn’t have been in prison, anyway, ” Regina surprised herself by kindly saying. “I’ve never seen you do anything wrong and have never been afraid of you. ”
“Why, thank you, Miss Reginia. ” Pony smiled but was puzzled. He was unaccustomed to Regina’s having any opinion about his welfare or even noticing that he might have a life of his own. “I ‘preciate that, and I think I can help you with Trip. What it’s looking like is, he only respond to one- or two-word commands. If you start trying to conversate with him, he gets confused and don’t listen. ”
Regina perked up a bit.