“It was supposed to be a surprise.”
“Oh, right.”
“I swear! Sixty thousand extra, for you and me.”
“Freddie, don’t screw around.” /
“How could I steal it, Edie? The check will be made out to ‘Mister and Mrs Torres.’ That’s you guys. Think about it.”
Irritably she paced the kitchen. “I’m so stupid,” she muttered. “Jesus.”
Of course the furnishings would be separate, along with the clothes and appliances and every stupid little doodad inside the place. Fred Dove said, “You never filed a big claim before. You wouldn’t know.”
“Dwelling and contents.”
“Exactly.”
She stopped pacing and lowered her voice. “Snapper didn’t look at the new numbers.”
Fred Dove gave her a thumbs-up. “That was my next question.”
“I kept my hand over the papers so he wouldn’t see.”
“Good girl.”
“Can we get two checks instead of one?”
“I think so, Edie. Sure.”
“One for the dwelling, one for the contents.”
“That’s the idea,” the insurance man said. “An extra sixty for you and me. But don’t say a word about this.”
“No shit, Sherlock. He’s still got three bullets left, remember?” She pecked Fred Dove on the lips and aimed him out the back door.
TWENTY-ONE
Skink and Bonnie Lamb kept watch over the house on Calusa while Augustine returned to the pickup truck for the guns. He wasn’t in the mood to shoot at anybody, even with monkey tranquilizer. Making love to Bonnie had left him recklessly serene and sleepy-headed. He resolved to shake himself out of it.
First he attempted to depress himself with misgivings and high-minded reproach. The woman was married, newly married! She was confused, lonely, vulnerable- Augustine piled it on, struggling to feel like a worthless low-life piece of shit. But he was too happy. Bonnie dazzled him with her nerve. Augustine hadn’t ever been with a woman who would stoically snack on roadkill, or fail to complain about mosquitoes. Moreover, she seemed to understand the psychotherapeutic benefits of skull juggling. “Touching death,” she’d said, “or maybe teasing it.”
In the aftermath of passion, zipped naked into a sleeping bag, a lover’s groggiest murmurs can be mistaken for piercing insight. Augustine had cautioned himself against drawing too much from those tender exhausted moments with Bonnie Lamb. Yet here he was with a soaring heart and the hint of a goddamn spring in his step. Would he ever learn?
As much as he craved her company, Augustine was apprehensive about Bonnie’s joining Skink’s expedition. He feared that he’d worry about her to distraction, and he needed his brain to be clear, uncluttered. As long as / the governor ran the show, trouble was positively guaranteed. Augustine was counting on it; he couldn’t wait. Finally he was on the verge of recapturing, at least temporarily, direction and purpose.
Bonnie was a complication. A week ago Augustine had nothing to lose, and now he had something. Everything. Love’s lousy timing, he thought.
Secret moves would be easier with only the two of them, he and Skink. But Bonnie demanded to be in the middle, playing Etta to their Butch and Sundance. The governor didn’t seem to care; of course, he lived in a different universe. “‘Happiness is never grand,'” he’d whispered to Augustine. “Aldous Huxley. ‘Being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune.’ You think about that.”
When Augustine got to the truck, he broke down the dart rifle and concealed the pieces in a gym bag. The .38 pistol he tucked in the gut of his jeans, beneath his shirt. He slung the gym bag over his shoulder and began hiking back toward Calusa, wondering if Huxley was right.
As soon as Dennis Reedy and Fred Dove drove away, Edie Marsh hauled Levon Stichler out of the closet. Snapper wasn’t much help. He claimed to be saving his energy.
Edie poked the old man with a bare toe. “So what are we going to do with him?” It was a question of para-
mount interest to Levon Stichler as well. His eyes widened in anticipation of Snapper’s answer, which was:
“Dump him.”
“Where?” asked Edie.
“Far away,” Snapper said. “Fucker meant to kill me.”
“It was a pitiful try, you’ve got to admit.”