From the bow came a whine of disgust: Max Lamb, arms folded, face pinched, sucking a Bronco cigaret. Bonnie turned back to the tranquilized stranger. The trooper knelt beside him. With a handkerchief he cleaned the foul splatter off Skirik’s face; “the glass eye needed special attention.
Augustine said, “He’s breathing.”
A volcanic cough, and then: “I saw lobsters big as Sonny Listen.” Skink raised his head.
Jim Tile said, “Be still now.”
“My Walkman!”
“We’ll get you a new one. Now lie still.”
Skink lowered his head with a sharp clunk. Humming, he shut both eyes.
Bonnie Lamb asked, “What do we do with him?”
Max laughed acidly. “He’s going to jail, what’d you think?”
Bonnie looked at Augustine, who said, “It’s up to Jim. He’s the law.”
The trooper had a thermos open, trying to get some hot coffee into his groggy friend. Bonnie put her hands under the kidnapper’s head to help him drink. Augustine went to the console and started the boat. Over the noise of the engines, Bonnie asked Jim Tile if she should sit with the man during the ride back, in case he got ill again. The trooper leaned close and in a low voice said: “He’s all right now. Go check on your husband.”
“OK,” Bonnie said. She was glad for the darkness, so the trooper couldn’t see her blush. Neither could Max.
The conversation between Gar Whitmark and his wife was not a loving one. That she had handed seven thousand cash to a band of crooked roofers was infuriating enough; that she had failed to ask the name of the one taking the money was unforgivably stupid. The only clue in tracking the thieves was the piece of yellow paper that had been given by the phony roofing foreman to Mrs Whitmark, the yellow paper intended to double as a receipt and an estimate, the yellow paper that Mrs Whitmark had instantly misplaced.
Gar Whitmark’s anger had another facet. He was by
trade a builder of residential subdivisions, and was therefore personally familiar with every honest, competent roofer in Dade County. The list was not voluminous, but from it Gar Whitmark had intended to select the crew that would rebuild the roof of his gutted home. He’d left messages with a half-dozen companies, and had explained (repeatedly) to his wife that it would take time to line up the job. The hurricane had launched a drooling Klondike stampede among roofers-the best ones were swamped with emergency work and likely would be engaged for months to come. Meanwhile out-of-towners were pouring into Miami by the truckload; some were capable and experienced, some were hapless and inept, and many were gypsy impostors. All arrived to find boundless opportunity.
The typical hurricane victim, frantic for shelter, was forced to trust his instincts when choosing a roof builder. Unfortunately, the instincts of the typical hurricane victim in such matters were not acute. Gar Whitmark, however, had the twin advantages of knowing the cast of characters and possessing the clout to divert the best of them to his own pressing needs. With little trouble he located a top-notch roofer who agreed to put all other contracts aside to tackle Gar Whitmark’s roof (Whitmark being one of the most prolific home builders-and employers of roofing contractors-in all South Florida). However, the craftsman whom Whitmark selected first had to replace two other roofs: his own, and that of his wife’s mother.
Gar Whitmark gave the man seven days to patch up the family roofs. The delay proved unbearable for Mrs Whitmark, whose roaring anxiety at the chance of more rain-stained Chippendales was no match for her customary palliative dosages of sedatives, muscle relaxants, sleep aids and mood elevators. To Mrs Whitmark, the unexpected appearance of willing roofers at the door had been a godsend. She thought her husband would be grateful for her initiative-it would be one less problem for him to worry about, what with all the nasty threats of negligence suits from customers whose Whitmark Signature homes had disintegrated like soggy cardboard in the hurricane.
Standing in the living room, the rain beating a tattoo on his blue-veined forehead, Gar Whitmark instructed his wife to immediately locate the goddamn receipt or estimate or whatever the goddamn so-called foreman had called it. After an hour’s search, the crucial yellow paper turned up neatly folded in Mrs Whitmark’s high-school yearbook; Gar Whitmark couldn’t imagine why his wife had put it there, or how she found it. Nor could she explain it herself-her brain was too jumbled by the hurricane.