“Let’s go eat,” he said. “I’m fuckin’ starved.”
Fred Dove rose shakily. He modestly locked his hands in front of his crotch. “I’m taking this thing off,” he declared.
“The rubber?” Snapper gave him a thumbs-up. “You do that.” He glanced at Edie, who made no effort to cover her breasts or anything else. She eyed Snapper in a dark poisonous way.
He said, “That’s how you goin’ to Denny’s? Fine by me. Maybe we’ll get a free pie.”
Wordlessly Edie walked behind the Naugahyde recli-ner, picked up the crowbar she’d left there, took two steps toward Snapper, and swung at him with all her strength. He went down squalling.
Weapon in hand, Edie Marsh straddled him. Her damp and tangled hair had fallen to cover the bruised half of her face. To Fred Dove, she looked untamed and dazzling and alarmingly capable-of homicide. He feared’ he was about to witness his first.
Edie inserted the sharp end of the crowbar between Snapper’s deviated jawbones, pinning his bloodless tongue to his teeth.
“Kick me again,” she said, “and I’ll have your balls in a blender.”
Fred Dove snatched his pants and his briefcase, and ran.
They returned the borrowed speedboat to the marina and went back to Coral Gables. With great effort they carried the man known as Skink into Augustine’s house.
Max Lamb was unnerved by the wall of grinning skulls, but said nothing as he made his way down the hall to the shower. Augustine got on the telephone to sort out what had happened with his dead uncle’s Cape buffalo. Bonnie fixed a pot of coffee and took it to the guest room, where the governor was recovering from the animal dart. He and Jim Tile were talking when Bonnie walked in. She wanted to stay and listen to this improbable stranger, but she felt she was intruding. The men’s conversation was serious, held in low tones. She heard Skink say:
“Brenda’s a strong one. She’ll make it.”
Then, Jim Tile: “I’ve tried every prayer I know.”
As Bonnie slipped out the door, she encountered Max, sucking on a cigaret as he emerged from the bathroom. She resolved to be forbearing about her husband’s odious new habit, which he blamed on the battlefield stress of the abduction.
She followed him to the living room and sat beside him on the sofa. There, in sensational detail, he described the torture he’d received at the hands of the one-eyed misfit.
“The dog collar,” Bonnie Lamb said.
“That’s right. Look at my neck.” Max opened the top
buttons of his shirt, which he’d borrowed from Augustine. “See the burns? See?”
Bonnie didn’t notice any marks, but nodded sympathetically. “So you definitely want to prosecute.”
“Absolutely!” Max Lamb detected doubt in his wife’s voice. “Christ, Bonnie, he could’ve murdered me.”
She squeezed his hand. “I still don’t understand why-why he did it in the first place.”
“With a fruitcake like that, who knows.” Max Lamb purposely didn’t mention Skink’s disgust with the hurricane videos; he remembered that Bonnie felt the same way.
She said, “I think he needs professional help.”
“No, sweetheart, he needs a professional jail.” Max lifted his chin and blew smoke at the ceiling.
“Honey, let’s think about this-”
But he pulled away from her, bolting for the phone, which Augustine had just hung up. “I’d better call Pete Archibald,” Max Lamb said over his shoulder, “let everyone at Rodale know I’m OK.”
Bonnie Lamb got up and went to the guest room. The governor was sitting upright in bed, but his eyes were half shut. His ragged beard was finely crusted with ocean salt. Jim Tile, his Stetson tucked under one arm, stood near the window.
Bonnie poured each of them another cup of coffee. “How’s he feeling?” she whispered.
Skink’s good eye blinked open. “Better,” he said, thickly.
She set the coffeepot on the bedstand. “It was monkey tranquilizer,” she explained.
“Never to be combined with psychoactive drugs,” said Skink, “particularly toad sweat.”
Bonnie looked at Jim Tile, who said, “I asked him.”
“Asked me what?” Skink rasped.
“About the dead guy in the TV dish,” the trooper said. Then, to Bonnie: “He didn’t do it.”
“Though I do admire the style,” said Skink.