“Your wife,” Skink was saying, “will surely hook up with somebody who knows the way.”
“I could use a cigaret. Please, captain.”
Skink groped in his coat until he came up with a fresh pack. He tossed it, along with a lighter, to his captive.
Max Lamb was embarrassed that he’d so quickly become hooked on the infamously harsh Broncos. Around the agency they were jokingly known as Bron-chials, such was their killer reputation with anti-smoking zealots. Max attributed his hazardous new habit to severe stress, not a weakness of character. In the advertising business it was essential to remain immune from the base appetites that tyrannized the average consumer.
Skink said: “What else have you to show for yourself?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Slogans, tiger. Besides the Plum Crispies.”
“Crunchies,” said Max, tightly.
The dock shimmied as Skink rose to his feet. Max braced himself against a half-rotted beam. There was nowhere to go; the old man who ferried them across the bay had snatched Skink’s fifty dollars and hastily aimed the skiff back toward the mainland.
Skink swung the lantern around and around his head. Caught in the erratic strobe, Max said, “All right, captain, here’s one: ‘That fresh good-morning feeling, all day long.'”
“Product name?”
“Intimate Mist.”
“No!” The lantern hissed as Skink put it down.
Max tried not to sound defensive. “It’s a feminine hygiene’item. Very popular.”
“The raspberry rinse! Sweet Jesus, I thought you were joking. This is the sum of your life achievements- douche jingles?”
“No,” Max snapped. “Soft drinks, gasoline additives, laser copiers-I’ve worked on plenty of accounts.” He wondered what had impelled him to mention the Intimate Mist campaign. Was it an unconscious act of masochism, or carelessness caused by fatigue?
Skink sat heavily on the porch, which was canted at an alarming angle toward the bay. “I do hear a boat,” he said.
Max stared curiously across the water. He heard nothing but the slap of waves and the scattered piping of seagulls. He asked, “What happens now?”
There was no reply. Max Lamb saw, in the yellow flicker of the lantern, a smile cross the crazy man’s face.
“You seriously don’t want any ransom?”
“I didn’t say that. Money is what I don’t want.”
“Then what?” Max flicked his cigaret into the water. “Tell me what the hell it’s all about. I’m sick of this game, I really am!”
Skink was amused by the display of anger. Maybe there was hope for the precious little bastard. “What I want,” he said to Max Lamb, “is to spend some time with your wife. She intrigues me.”
“In what Way?”
“Clinically. Anthropologically. What in the world does she see in you? How do you two fit?” Skink gave a mischievous wink. “I like mysteries.”
“If you touch her-”
“What a brave young stud!”
Max Lamb took two steps toward the madman, but froze when Skink raised a hand to his own throat. The collar! Max felt a hot sizzle shoot from his scalp down the length of his spine. Instantly he foresaw himself hopping like a puppet. Had he known that the battery in the Tri-Tronics remote control had been dead for the past six hours, it wouldn’t have softened his reaction. He was a slave to his subconscious. He had come to understand that the anticipation of pain was more ‘ immobilizing than the pain itself-though the knowledge didn’t help him.
When Max settled down, Skink assured him he had no carnal interest in his wife. “Christ, I’m not trying to
get laid; I’m trying to figure out man’s place in the food chain.” His long arms swept an arc across the stars. “A riddle of the times, Tourist Boy. Five thousand years ago we’re doodling on the walls of caves. Today we’re writing odes to fruit-flavored douche.”
“It’s a job,” Max Lamb replied petulantly. “Get over it.”
Skink yawned like a gorged hyena. “That’s a damn big engine coming. I hope your Bonnie wasn’t foolish enough to call the police.”
“I warned her not to.”
Skink went on: “My opinion about your wife will be shaped by how she handles this situation. Whom she brings. Her attitude. Her composure.”