Without using her hands, Edie Marsh leaned him against the wall for leverage. He released her hair and rapturously locked a monkey grip on the wooden dowel. His upturned face was obstructed by the silken armpit of somebody’s wedding gown.
Suddenly he had a humiliating flashback to what had happened the last time, when Snapper interrupted them on the floor of the living room. To prevent a recurrence, Fred groped for the doorknob and held it shut.
From below, Edie Marsh paused to inquire again: “Will Reedy have the settlement check?”
“N-no. The check always comes from Omaha.”
“Shit.”
Fred Dove wasn’t sure whether he heard her say it, or felt her say it. The important thing was, she didn’t stop.
When Augustine came out to the truck, Bonnie Lamb and the governor were gone. He found them a few blocks away, behind a deserted hurricane house. Skink was kneeling next to a swimming pool, scooping chubby brown toads out of the rancid water and slipping them into his pockets. Bonnie was busy fending off the mosquitoes that hovered in an inky cloud around her face.
Augustine related what he’d learned about the black Jeep Cherokee. Skink said, “Where’s Calusa Drive?”
“They drew me a map.”
“Are we going now?” Bonnie asked.
“Tomorrow,” Skink said. “We’ll need daylight.”
He and Augustine decided to spend the night nearby. They found an empty field and built a campfire from storm debris. Nearby another small fire glowed, flickering from the mouth of a fifty-five-gallon drum-itinerant laborers from Ohio. Two of them wandered over in search of crack. Augustine spooked them off with a casual display of the .38. Skink disappeared with the toads into a scrubby palmetto thicket.
Bonnie said, “What’s DMT?”
“A Wall Street drug,” Augustine replied. “Before our time.”
“He said he dries the toad poison and smokes it. He said it’s a chemical strain of DMT.”
“I believe I’ll stick to beer.” Augustine got two
sleeping bags from the cab of the truck. He shook them out and spread them near the fire.
She said, “I’m sorry about last night.”
“Quit saying that.” Like it would have been the worst mistake of her entire life.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said.
Augustine arranged some dead branches on the fire. “Nothing’s wrong with you, Bonnie. You’re so normal it’s scary.” He sat cross-legged on one of the sleeping bags.
“Come here,” he said. When he put his arms around her, she felt completely relaxed and secure. Then he said: “I can take you to the airport.”
“No!”
“Because after tonight, you’ll be in the thick of it.”
Bonnie Lamb said, “That’s what I want. Max got his adventure, I want mine.”
A reedy howl rose from the palmettos, diffusing into a creepy rumble of laughter.
Bufo madness, thought Augustine. Bonnie stiffened in his embrace. Firmly she said, “I’m not leaving now. No way.”
He lifted her chin. “This is not a well person. This is a man who put a shock collar on your husband, a man who gets high off frog slime. He’s done things you don’t want to know about, probably even killed people.”
“At least he believes in something.”
“Good Lord, Bonnie.”
“Then why are you here? If he’s so dangerous, if he’s so crazy-”
“Who said he was crazy.”
“Answer the question, Senor Herrera.”
Augustine blinked at the firelight. “I’m not so tightly wrapped myself. That should be obvious.”
Bonnie Lamb pressed closer. She wondered why she so enjoyed the fact that both of these new men were unpredictable and impulsive-opposites of the man she’d married. Max was exceptionally reliable, but he was neither deep nor enigmatic. Five minutes with Max and you had the whole menu.
She said, “I suppose I’m rebelling. Against what, I don’t know. It’s a first for me.”
Augustine rebuked himself for showing off with the skulls; what woman could resist such charm? Bonnie laughed softly.
“Seriously,” he said, “there’s a big difference between your situation and mine. You’ve got a husband and a life. I’ve got nothing else to do, and nothing to lose by not doing it.”
“Your uncle’s animals?”
“Long gone,” he said. “Anyway, there’s worse places than Miami to be for a monkey. They’ll make out fine.” After a rueful pause: “I do feel lousy about the water buffalo.”