STORMY WEATHER By CARL HIAASEN

But they hadn’t. Gil Peck’s nausea worsened. He should’ve kept his damn mouth shut. Now it was too late. Pink and blue bikini panties began to float up, like pale jellyfish, from the bed of the sunken truck.

The officer said: “What guy at what trailer park?”

Gil Peck told him about the dead man impaled in the TV dish. As other policemen arrived, Gil Peck repeated the story, and also his impassioned denials of guilt. One of the officers asked Gil Peck if he would take them to the body, and he agreed.

After the paramedics checked him for broken bones, the thief was toweled off and deposited in the back-seat cage of a Highway Patrol car. The trooper at the wheel was a large black man in a Stetson. On the way to the trailer court, Gil Peck delivered yet another excited monologue about his innocence.

“If you didn’t do it,” the trooper cut in, “why’d you run?”

“Scared, man.” Gil Peck shivered. “You should see.”

“Oh, I can’t wait,” the trooper said.

“You a Christian, sir?”

It was amazing, thought the trooper, how quickly the handcuffs induced spiritual devoutness. “Anyone read you your rights?” he asked the truck driver.

Gil Peck thrust his face to the mesh of the cage. “If you’re a Christian, you gotta believe what I’m sayin’. It wasn’t me that crucified the poor fucker.”

But Jim Tile hoped with all his Christian heart that it was. Because the other prime suspect was someone he didn’t want to arrest, unless there was no choice.

NINE

Skink eavesdropped leisurely while Max Lamb made two calls. The phone booth was at a truck stop on Krome Avenue, the fringe of the Everglades. Longbeds overloaded with lumber, sheet glass and tar paper streamed south in ragged convoys to the hurricane zone. Nobody glanced twice at the unshaven man on the phone, despite the collar around his neck.

When Max Lamb hung up, Skink grabbed his arm and led him to the airboat, beached on the bank of a muddy canal. Skink ordered him to lie in the bow, and there he remained for two hours, his cheekbone vibrating against the hull. The howl of the aviation engine filled his ears. Skink was no longer singing harmony. Max Lamb wondered what he’d done to further annoy his abductor.

They stopped once. Skink left the airboat briefly and returned with a large cardboard box, which he set in the bow next to Max. They traveled until dusk. When Skink finally lifted him to his knees, Max was surprised to see the Indian village. They didn’t stay long enough for Max to negotiate the return of his video camera. Skink borrowed a station wagon, put the box in the back, and buckled his prisoner on the passenger side. There was no sign of the monkey, and for that Max Lamb was grateful.

Skink put on the shower cap and started the car. Max needed to pee but was afraid to ask. He was no longer confident that he could talk his way out of the kidnapping.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

Skink shot him a stony look. “I remember your wife from the hurricane video. Hugging two little Cuban girls.”

“Yes, that was Bonnie.”

“Beautiful woman. You zoomed in on her face.”

“Can we stop the car,” Max interrupted, squirming, “just for a minute?”

Skink kept his eyes on the road. “Your bride’s got a good heart. That much is obvious from the video.”

“A saint,” Max agreed. He jammed both hands between his legs; he’d tie his dick in a Windsor before he’d wet himself in front of the governor.

“Why she’s with you, I can’t figure. It’s a real puzzler,” Skink said. He braked the car sharply. “Why didn’t you try to phone her tonight? You call your buddy in New York. You call .your folks in Milan-fucking-Italy. Why not Bonnie?”

“I don’t know where she is. That damn answering machine-”

“And the crap about you and her having a fight-”

“I didn’t want Peter to worry,” Max said.

“Well, God forbid.” Skink jammed the transmission into Park and flung himself out the door. He reappeared in the beam of the headlights, a hoary apparition crouched on the pavement. Max Lamb craned to see what he was doing.

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