Edie Marsh said, “You’re not making a damn bit of sense.”
Something shifted in the bed of the Jeep. The sound was followed by a faint quavering moan.
From the woman, Bonnie: “What are your names?”
Edie Marsh rolled her eyes. Bonnie caught it in the rearview.
Snapper said, “Fuckin’ idiots, the both of ’em.”
“All I meant,” said Bonnie Lamb, “is what should we call you?”
“I’m Farrah Fawcett,” Edie said. Nodding at Snapper: “He’s Ryan O’Neal.”
In discouragement, Bonnie turned toward the window. “Just forget it.”
A warm hand settled on Edie’s shoulder. “Whoever you are,” Skink said intimately, “you make a truly lovely couple.”
“Fuck you.”
Snapper lunged across the seat and stuck the barrel of the .357 in a crease of the stranger’s cheek. “You think I don’t got the balls to shoot?”
Skink nonchalantly pushed the gun away. He eased back in the seat and folded his arms. His fearless attitude distracted Edie Marsh. Snapper commanded her to pull off at the next exit. He needed to find a bathroom.
Having never been abducted at gunpoint, Bonnie Lamb wasn’t as scared as she thought she ought to be. She attributed the unexpected composure to her resolve for adventure and to the governor’s implausibly confident air. Based on nothing but blind faith, Bonnie was sure that Skink wouldn’t allow them to be harmed by a deformed auto thief. The guy’s erratic gun handling was nerve-racking, but somehow not so menacing with another woman in the Jeep. Bonnie Lamb could tell that she wasn’t some dull-eyed trailer-park tramp; she was a sharp cookie, and not especially afraid of the dolt with the pistol. Bonnie had a feeling there wouldn’t be any killing inside the truck.
She wondered what Max Lamb would think if he could see her now. Probably best that he couldn’t. She felt terrible about hurting her husband, but did she miss him? It didn’t feel like it. Perhaps she was doing Max the biggest favor of his life. Having waited all of one week to commit adultery with a near-total stranger, Bonnie surmised that she had, in the parlance of pop psychotherapy, “unresolved issues” to confront. Poor eager Max was a victim of misleading packaging. He thought he was getting one sort of woman when he was getting another. For that Bonnie felt guilty.
She vowed not to depress herself by overanalyzing her instant attraction to Augustine. She wished he were there, and wondered how he would ever find them on the road. Bonnie herself had no clue which way they were headed.
“South,” the governor reported. “And south is good.”
The man with the pistol snarled: “Quiet, asshole.”
Suddenly Bonnie got an eerie hologrammic vision of the gunman’s naked skull on the wall of Augustine’s guest room. The broken mandible caused the bony orb to rest with a sinister tilt on the shelf; a pirate’s crooked grin. Then Bonnie had a flash of Augustine, juggling the gunman’s skull with the others.
From a pocket Skink withdrew a squirming Bufo toad, which immediately peed on him. The man with the .357 sneered.
The woman who was driving glanced over her shoulder. “What now?” she grumbled.
“Smoke the sweat,” Skink said, cupping the toad and its amber piddle in his palm, “and then you see mastodons.”
“Get that stinking thing outta here,” said the gunman.
“Did you know mastodons once roamed Florida? Eons before your ancestors began their ruinous copulations. Mastodons as big as cement trucks!” Skink put the toad out the window. Then he wiped the toad pee on the sleeve of the gunman’s pinstriped suit.
“You fuck!” Snapper took aim at Skink’s good eye.
The woman at the wheel told him to cool it-other drivers were staring. She turned off at the next exit and pulled into an abandoned service station. The hurricane had blown down the gas pumps like dominoes. Looters had cleaned out the garage. On the roof lay the remains of a Mazda Miata, squashed upside down like a bright lady-bug.
While the gunman left the Jeep to relieve himself behind the building, the woman reluctantly took charge of the .357. She looked so uncomfortable that Bonnie Lamb felt a little sorry for her; the poor girl could barely hoist the darn thing. Surely, Bonnie thought, now was the moment for Skink to make his move.