Edie drove slowly, fretfully. The man was a keeling wreck. How could they possibly pull this off? She devised a fantasy scenario: If Snapper passed out drunk, she’d push him from the Jeep. Then she’d tell the eccentric couple in the back seat that she was very, very sorry-it was all a terrible misunderstanding. She’d promise them Snapper’s share of the Midwest Casualty settlement if they’d forget the whole dreadful evening. She would drive them back to Miami without delay and (to prove she was basically a decent person) offer to replace the gold ring stolen from the lady trooper. The unconscious Snapper would be run over on the highway by a passing shrimp truck and no longer pose a menace to society, or to Edie’s future.
Unfortunately, Snapper wasn’t nodding off. The Johnnie Walker bottle lay capped on the dashboard. Now he was playing with the gun, spinning the cylinder and humming mischievously.
Edie Marsh said, “Could you please not do that?”
Snapper gurgled crapulously, his jaw jutting like a window box. “You’re so hot and sweaty, Edie, you oughta do what she almost done. Take off your clothes.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you.”
“I would love it. Wouldn’t y’all?” He waggled the .357 at Skink and Bonnie Lamb. “Come on, wouldn’t ya like to see Edie’s tits? They’re cuties.”
Bonnie felt crummy that she’d given Snapper the idea.
Skink said, “Speaking for myself, yes, I’m sure they’re delightful. But some other time.”
Edie Marsh felt herself blush. Nobody spoke. Snapper began to hum again, accompanied by the metered squeak of the windshield wipers. Ahead, on the ocean side of the highway, Edie saw the electric-blue sign for the Paradise Palms Resort Motel.
Skink shook Levon Stichler out of the carpet, dumping him like a sack of flour on the terrazzo. Somebody yanked off the gag and the blindfold.
The old man’s eyes watered at the sudden brightness.
A woman’s voice: “You again.”
Levon blinked until a face came into focus-the redhead from the hurricane house at Turtle Meadow. The chiffon scarf, Levon’s blinder, dangled from her festively painted fingernails. Standing next to the redhead was a wild-looking blonde. She said, “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
The redhead wore a diaphanous black bustier, fishnet stockings and stiletto heels. The blonde wore a silver lame teddy that made her shimmer like the hood ornament on a Silver Shadow. The air was sugary with perfume; pure heaven, after three hours of gagging on mildew and carpet fuzz. When Levon Stichler sat up, he found himself in the center of an attentive circle: the two prostitutes, the thug in the pinstriped suit, the pretty long-haired brunette, another young woman, with creamy skin and delicate features, and a large bearded man wearing a flowered shower cap. The bearded man was polishing a glass eye on the sleeve of his jacket.
They were gathered in a small motel room. Levon Stichler said: “What’s this all about?” The prostitutes introduced themselves. Bridget and
Jasmine.
Snapper dropped to a crouch. Roughly he pinched the back of the old man’s neck. “You tried to kill me, ‘member?”
“It was a mistake. I told you.”
“Here’s the deal: You’re gone stay down here two, maybe three days with the girls. They’re gone fuck ya and blow ya till you can’t walk. Plus they gone take some pitchers.”
Levon was skeptical. The man reeked of liquor and spoke as if he had a mouthful of marbles.
“Just shoot me and get it over with.”
“We’re not shooting anybody.” It was the pretty . brunette. “Honest,” she said, “long as you behave.”
Snapper said, “Maybe you’re too old to get it up or maybe you like guys-I don’t fuckin’ care. Point is, you stay here with these girls till I call and say it’s OK to leave. Then what you do, you take your sweet time gettin’ back to Miami. By that I mean, stand on the highway with your thumb out. Unnerstand?”
Levon stammered and blinked. Snapper swatted him twice across the face.
Edie Marsh said: “I don’t think Mister Stichler realizes the alternative. The alternative is we go to the cops and tell how you tried to murder Snapper and rape me with that trailer spike. Your family’ll think you’ve gone senile. The photographs won’t help-Grandpa doing pony rides with two call girls.”