One rainy Sunday afternoon, Avila bought himself a live chicken. His wife was cooking a big dinner for the cousins, so she banished Avila from the kitchen. He put a Ginsu knife in his back pocket and smuggled the victim to the garage. As soon as Avila began spreading newspapers on the floor, the chicken sensed trouble. Avila was astounded that a puny five-pound bird could make such a racket or put up such spirited resistance. The crudely staged sacrifice eventually was completed, but Avila emerged scratched, pecked and smeared with bloody feathers. So was his wife's cream-colored Buick Electra. Her ear-splitting tirade caused the cousins to forgo dessert and head home early.

Two days later, the magic happened. The prosecutor targeted by Avila's chicken curse fell and dislocated a shoulder in the shower. At the time, he was in the company of an athletic prostitute named Kandi, who was thoughtful enough not only to call 911 but to make herself available for numerous press interviews. Given the media uproar, the State Attorney suggested that the fallen prosecutor take an indefinite leave of absence.

The corruption investigation wasn't derailed, merely reassigned. Nevertheless, Avila was convinced that the santeria spell was a success. Later attempts to replicate the results proved fruitless (and messy), but Avila blamed his own inexperience, plus a lack of suitable facilities. Perhaps, during the sacrifices, he was chanting the wrong phrases, or chanting the right phrases in the wrong order. Perhaps he was performing the ceremonies at a bad time of day for the mercurial Change. Or perhaps Avila was simply using inferior poultry.

While he ended up plea-bargaining with the replacement prosecutor, Avila's faith in the witchcraft of bones and blood remained unshaken. He decided Snapper's transgression was heinous enough to merit the offering of two chickens instead of one. If that didn't work, he'd invest in a billy goat.

The roosters did not succumb quietly, the clamor awakening Avila's wife, aunt and mother. The women burst, into the garage to find Avila singing Spanish gibberish to his cherished ceramic statue. Avila's wife instantly spied red droplets and a waxen fragment of chicken beak on the left front fender of her Electra, and savagely took to striking her husband with a garden rake.

On the other side of Dade County, Snapper dozed peacefully in a dead man's Naugahyde recliner. He felt no pain from the supernatural hand of Chango, nor did he feel the hateful glare of Edie Marsh, who was stretched out on the mildewed carpet and trussed to a naked insurance man.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As the candles melted to lumps, Snapper's shadow flickered and shrunk on the pale bare walls. His profile reminded Edie Marsh of a miniature tyrannosaurus.

For laughs, he refused to let Fred Dove remove the red condom.

"That's mean," Edie said.

"Well, I'm one mean motherfucker," Snapper proclaimed. "You don't believe me, there's a lady cop in the hospital you should see."

When he yawned, the misaligned mandible waggled horizontally, then appeared to disengage altogether from his face. He looked like a snake trying to swallow an egg.

Edie said, "What is it you want?"

"You know damn well." Snapper held the flashlight on Fred Dove's retreating cock. "Where'd you find a red rubber?" he asked. "Mail order, I bet. Looks like a Santy Claushat."

From the floor, the insurance man gave a disconsolate whimper. Edie leaned her head against the small of his back. Snapper had positioned them butt-to-butt, binding their hands with a curtain sash. In Fred Dove's briefcase Snapper found the business cards and policy folders from Midwest Casualty. From that it was easy to figure out-Edie on her knees, and so on. Snapper marveled at the exquisite timing of his entrance.

He said, "Fair is fair. A three-way split."

"But you took off!" Edie objected. "You left me here with that asshole Tony."

Snapper shrugged. "I changed my mind. I'm allowed. So how much money we talkin' about?"

"Fuck you," said Edie Marsh.

Without leaving the recliner, Snapper cocked one leg and kicked her in the side of the head. The sound of the blow was sickening. Edie moaned but didn't cry.

"For God's sake." Fred Dove's voice cracked, as if he were the one who'd been clobbered.

Snapper said, "Then tell me how much."

"Don't you dare." Edie was woozy, but sharply she dug both elbows into Fred Dove's ribs.

"I'm waiting," said Snapper.

Edie felt the insurance man stiffen against the ropes. Then she heard him say: "A hundred forty-one thousand dollars."

"Moron! "Edie hissed.

"But you won't get a dime," Fred Dove warned Snapper, "without me and Edie."

"That a fact?"

"Yes, sir."

"Not a goddamn cent," Edie agreed, "because guess who's getting the settlement check. Missus Neria Torres. Me."

Snapper aimed the flashlight on Edie's face, which bore a puffy salmon imprint of his shoe. "Sweetie," he said, "it's hard to sign a check if you're in a body cast. Understand?"

She turned away from the harsh light and silently cursed her lousy taste in convicts.

Fred Dove said to Snapper: "You ought to untie us."

"Well, listen to Santy Claus!"

Edie's pulse jackhammered in her temples. "You know what it is, Fred? Snapper's jealous. See, it's not about the insurance money. It's that I was going to make love to you—"

"Haw!" Snapper exclaimed.

"-and he knows," Edie went on, "he knows I wouldn't do it with him for all the money in Fort Knox!"

Snapper laughed. Nudging Fred Dove with a toe, he said, "Don't kid yourself, bubba. She'd fuck a syphilitic porky-pine, she thought there was a dollar in it."

"Nice talk," Edie said. God Almighty, her head hurt.

The insurance man fought to steady his nerves. He was flabbergasted to find himself in the middle of something so ugly, complicated and dangerous. Only hours ago the arrangement seemed foolproof and exciting: a modestly fraudulent claim, a beautiful and uninhibited co-conspirator, a wild fling in an abandoned hurricane house.

A bright-red condom seemed appropriate.

Then out of nowhere appeared this Snapper person, a hard-looking sort and an authentic criminal, judging by what Fred Dove had seen and heard. The insurance man didn't want such a violent character for a third partner. On the other hand, he didn't want to die or be harmed seriously enough to require hospitalization. Blue Cross would demand facts, as would Fred Dove's wife.