The agents let Bonnie Lamb borrow a private office, where she tried with no luck to reach Max’s parents, who were traveling in Europe. Next Bonnie phoned her own parents. Her mother sounded sincere in her alarm; her father, as usual, sounded helpless. He half-heartedly offered to fly to Florida, but Bonnie said it wasn’t necessary. All she could do was wait for Max or the kidnapper to call again. Bonnie’s mother promised to
FedEx some cash and an eight-by-ten photograph of Max, for the authorities.
Bonnie Lamb’s last call was to Peter Archibald at the Rodalp 8c Burns advertising agency in Manhattan. Max Lamb’s colleague was shocked at Bonnie’s news, but vowed to maintain the confidentiality requested by the FBI. When Bonnie passed along her husband’s frantic instructions about the cigaret billboard, Peter Archibald said: “You married a real trouper, Bonnie.”
“Thank you, Peter.”
Augustine took her to a fish house for lunch. She ordered a gin-and-tonic, and said: “I want your honest opinion about the FBI guys.”
“OK. I think they had problems with the tape.”
“Max didn’t sound scared enough.”
“Possibly,” Augustine said, “and, like I mentioned, he seemed a little too worried about the Marlboro account.”
“It’s Broncos,” Bonnie corrected. From the way she winced at the gin, Augustine could tell she wasn’t much of a drinker. “So they blew me off as a jilted wife.”
“Not at all. They started a file. They’re the best darn file-starters in the world. Then they’ll send your tape to the audio lab. They’ll probably even make a few phone calls. But you saw how deserted the place was-half their agents are home cleaning up storm damage.”
She said, angrily, “The world doesn’t stop for a hurricane.”
“No,” Augustine said, “but it wobbles like a sonofa-bitch. I’m having the shrimp, how about you?”
Mrs Lamb didn’t speak again until they were in the
pickup truck, heading south to the hurricane zone. She asked Augustine to stop at the county morgue.
He thought: She couldn’t have gotten this brainstorm before lunch.
Snapper had neither the ambition nor the energy to be a predator in the classic criminal mold. He saw himself strictly as a canny opportunist. He wouldn’t endeavor to commit a first-degree felony unless the moment presented itself. He believed in serendipity, because it suited his style of minimal exertion.
He heard the kids coming long before he saw them. The souped-up Cherokee blasted Snoop Doggy Dogg through the neighborhood, rattling the few windows that the hurricane had not broken. The kids drove by once, circled the block, and cruised past again.
Snapper smiled to himself, thinking: It’s the damn pinstripes. They think I’m carrying money.
He kept walking. When the Cherokee came around a third time, the rap music had been turned off. Stupid, Snapper thought. Why not take out a billboard: Watch us mug this guy!
As the Jeep rolled up behind him, Snapper stepped to the side and slowed his pace. He slipped Tony Torres’s garden hose off his shoulder and carried it coiled in front of him. The Cherokee came alongside. One of the kids was hanging out the passenger window. He waved a chrome-plated pistol at Snapper.
“Hey, mud-fuckah,” the kid said.
“Good mornin’,” said Snapper. He deftly looped a coil of the garden hose around the kid’s head and jerked him out of the truck. When the kid hit the pavement, hedropped the gun. Snapper picked it up. He stepped on the kid’s chest and began twisting the hose tightly on the kid’s throat.
The other muggers piled out of the Cherokee with the intention of rescuing their friend and killing the butt-ugly geek in the shiny suit, but the plan changed when they saw who had the pistol. Then they ran.
Snapper waited until the kid on the ground was almost unconscious before loosening the hose. “I need to borrow some gas,” said Snapper, “to watch Sally Jessy.”
The kid sat up slowly and rubbed his neck, which bled from the place where his three gold chains had cut into his flesh. He wore a tank top to show off the tattoos on his left biceps-a gang insignia and the nickname “BabyRaper.”
Snapper said, “Baby, you got a gas can?”