Edie Marsh said nothing. She willed herself to concentrate on the slick two-lane blacktop, which intermittently was strewn with pine boughs, palmetto fronds and loose sheets of plywood. A regular obstacle course. Edie checked the speedometer: ninety-two miles per hour. Not bad for a city girl.
Snapper, ordering her to slow down, couldn’t keep the raw nervousness out of his voice. Edie acted as if she didn’t hear a word.
The one who called himself Skink didn’t stir from his nap, trance, coma, whatever it was. Meanwhile the
young newlywed (Edie noticed in the rearview) carefully removed her own wedding band from her finger.
The tollbooth was empty and the gate was up. Edie didn’t bother to slow down. Bonnie Lamb held her breath.
When they blew through the narrow lane, Snapper exclaimed, “Jesus!”
As the Jeep climbed the steep bridge, Skink raised his head. “This is the place.”
“Where you spent the storm?” Bonnie asked.
He nodded. “Glorious.”
Beneath them, broken sunlight painted Biscayne Bay in shifting stripes of copper and slate. Ahead, a bloom of lavender clouds dumped chutes of rain on the green mangrove shorelines of North Key Largo. As the truck crested the bridge, Skink pointed out a pod of bottle-nosed dolphins rolling along the edge of a choppy boat channel. From such a height the arched flanks of the creatures resembled glinting slivers of jet ceramic, covered and then uncovered by foamy waves.
“Just look,” said Bonnie Lamb. The governor was right-it was purely spectacular up here.
Even Edie Marsh was impressed. She curbed the Jeep on the downhill slope and turned off the key. She strained to keep the rollicking dolphins in view.
Snapper fumed impatiently. “What is this shit?” He jabbed Edie in the arm with the .357. “Hey you, drive.”
“Take it easy.”
“I said fucking drive.”
“And I said take it fucking easy.”
Edie was livid. The last time Snapper had seen that hateful glare was moments before she’d bludgeoned his leg with the crowbar iron. He cocked the revolver. “Don’t be a cunt.”
“Excuse me?” One eyebrow arched. “What’d you say?”
Bonnie Lamb feared that Edie was going to lose her mind and go for Snapper’s throat, at which point she certainly would be shot dead. Snapper jammed the gun flush against her right breast.
The governor was unaware. He had everted the upper half of his torso out the window to watch the dolphins make their way north, and also to enjoy a fresh sprinkle that had begun to fall. Bonnie tried to grab his hand, but it was too large. She settled for squeezing two of his fingers. Gradually Skink drew himself back into the Jeep and appraised the tense drama unfolding in the front seat.
“You heard me,” Snapper was saying.
“So that was you,” Edie said, “calling me a cunt.”
Violently Snapper twisted the gun barrel, bunching the fabric of Edie’s blouse and wringing the soft flesh beneath it. God, Bonnie thought, that’s got to hurt.
Edie Marsh didn’t let it show.
“Drive!” Snapper told her again.
“When I’m through watching Flipper.”
“Fuck Flipper.” Snapper raised the .357 and fired once through the top of the Jeep.
Bonnie Lamb cried out and covered her ears. Edie Marsh clutched the steering wheel to steady herself. The pain in her right breast made her wonder briefly if she was shot. She wasn’t.
Snapper cheerlessly eyed the hole in the roof of the truck; the acrid whiff of cordite made him sneeze. “God bless me,” he said, with a dark chuckle.
A door opened. Skink got out of the Jeep to stretch. “Don’t you love this place!” He unfolded his long arms toward the clouds. “Don’t it bring out the beast in your soul!”
Glorious, Bonnie agreed silently. That’s the word for it.
“Get back in the car,” Snapper barked.
Skink obliged, shaking the raindrops from his hair like a sheep dog. Without a word, Edie Marsh started the engine and drove on.
TWENTY-FOUR
“What do you mean, no roosters?”
The owner of the botdnica apologized. It had been a busy week for fowl. He offered Avila a sacrificial billy goat instead.
Avila said, “No way, Jose.” The sutures from his goring itched constantly. “I never heard anyone running outta roosters. What else you got?”