“Some customers got really pissed off at me. It’s a long boring story.”
Edie Marsh said, “How pissed off?”
“I don’t intend to find out,” said Tony Torres. “Once I get the check, I’m gone.” . “Where?”
“None a your damn business.”
Middle America was what Tony had in mind. A handsome two-story house with a porch and a fireplace, on three-quarters of an acre outside Tulsa. What appealed to Tony about Middle America was the absence of hurricanes. There were tornadoes galore, but nobody expected any man-made structure (least of all, a trailer home) to withstand the terrible force of a tornado. Nobody would blame a person if the double-wides he sold blew to pieces, because that was the celestial nature of tornadoes. Tony Torres figured he would be safe from disgruntled customers in Tulsa.
Snapper said, “I’m gonna be a bodyguard, I’ll need my gun.”
Tony smiled. “No you won’t. That face of yours is enough to scare the piss out of most mortal men. Which is perfect, because the people who’re mad at me, they don’t actually need to be shot. They just need to be scared. See where I’m headed?”
He took a length of bathroom pipe and smashed Snapper’s pistol to pieces.
Edie Marsh said, “I’ve got a question, too.”
“Well, bless your heart.”
“What happens if your wife shows up?”
“We got probably six, seven days of breathing room,” Tony Torres said. “However long it takes to drive that old van back from Oregon. See, Neria won’t fly. She’s terrified of planes.”
Snapper remarked that money was known to make a person drive faster than usual, or overcome a fear of flying. Tony said he wasn’t worried. “The radio said State Farm and Allstate are writing settlements already. Midwest won’t be far behind-see, no company wants to look stingy in a national disaster.”
Edie asked Tony Torres if he intended to hold them prisoner. He gave a great slobbering laugh and said hell, no, they could vamoose anytime they pleased. Edie stood and announced she was returning to the motel. Snapper rose warily, never taking his eyes off the shotgun.
He said to Tony: “Why are you doing this? Lettin’ us walk out of here.”
“Because you’ll be back,” the salesman said. “You most certainly will. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Really?” Edie said, tartly.
“Really, darling. It’s what I do for a living. Read people.” The Naugahyde hissed as Tony Torres hoisted himself up from the BarcaLounger. “I need to take a leak,” he declared. Then, with a hoot: “I’m sure you can find your way out!”
On the slow drive back to Pembroke Pines, Edie Marsh and Snapper mulled the options. Both of them were broke. Both recognized the post-hurricane turmoil as a golden opportunity. Both agreed that ten thousand dollars was a good week’s work.
“Trouble is,” Edie said, “I don’t trust that asshole. What is it he sells?”
“Trailer homes.”
“Good Lord.”
“Then let’s walk away,” Snapper said, without conviction. “Try the slip-and-fall on somebody else.”
Edie contemplated the ugly, self-inflicted scratch on her arm. Posing under a pile of lumber had been more uncomfortable than she’d anticipated. She wasn’t eager to try it again.
“I’ll coast with this jerkoff a day or two,” she told Snapper. “You do what you want.”
Snapper configured his crooked jaws into the semblance of a grin. “I know what you’re thinkin’. I ain’t no salesman, but I can read you just the same. You’re thinkin’ they’s more than ten grand in this deal, you play it right. If we play it right.”
“Why not.” Edie Marsh pressed her cheek against the cool glass of the car’s window. “It’s about time my luck should change.”
“Our luck,” Snapper said, both hands tight on the wheel.
Augustine helped Bonnie Lamb search for her husband until nightfall. They failed to locate Max, but along the
way they came upon an escaped male rhesus. It was up in a grapefruit tree, hurling unripened fruit at passing humans. Augustine shot the animal with a tranquilizer dart, and it toppled like a marionette. Augustine was dismayed to discover, stapled in one of its ears, a tag identifying it as property of the University of Miami.