CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Skink and Bonnie Lamb kept watch over the house on Calusa while Augustine returned to the pickup truck for the guns. He wasn't in the mood to shoot at anybody, even with monkey tranquilizer. Making love to Bonnie had left him recklessly serene and sleepy-headed. He resolved to shake himself out of it.

First he attempted to depress himself with misgivings and high-minded reproach. The woman was married, newly married! She was confused, lonely, vulnerable– Augustine piled it on, struggling to feel like a worthless low-life piece of shit. But he was too happy. Bonnie dazzled him with her nerve. Augustine hadn't ever been with a woman who would stoically snack on roadkill, or fail to complain about mosquitoes. Moreover, she seemed to understand the psychotherapeutic benefits of skull juggling. "Touching death," she'd said, "or maybe teasing it."

In the aftermath of passion, zipped naked into a sleeping bag, a lover's groggiest murmurs can be mistaken for piercing insight. Augustine had cautioned himself against drawing too much from those tender exhausted moments with Bonnie Lamb. Yet here he was with a soaring heart and the hint of a goddamn spring in his step. Would he ever learn?

As much as he craved her company, Augustine was apprehensive about Bonnie's joining Skink's expedition. He feared that he'd worry about her to distraction, and he needed his brain to be clear, uncluttered. As long as the governor ran the show, trouble was positively guaranteed. Augustine was counting on it; he couldn't wait. Finally he was on the verge of recapturing, at least temporarily, direction and purpose.

Bonnie was a complication. A week ago Augustine had nothing to lose, and now he had something. Everything. Love's lousy timing, he thought.

Secret moves would be easier with only the two of them, he and Skink. But Bonnie demanded to be in the middle, playing Etta to their Butch and Sundance. The governor didn't seem to care; of course, he lived in a different universe. "'Happiness is never grand,'" he'd whispered to Augustine. "Aldous Huxley. 'Being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune.' You think about that."

When Augustine got to the truck, he broke down the dart rifle and concealed the pieces in a gym bag. The .38 pistol he tucked in the gut of his jeans, beneath his shirt. He slung the gym bag over his shoulder and began hiking back toward Calusa, wondering if Huxley was right.

As soon as Dennis Reedy and Fred Dove drove away, Edie Marsh hauled Levon Stichler out of the closet. Snapper wasn't much help. He claimed to be saving his energy.

Edie poked the old man with a bare toe. "So what are we going to do with him?" It was a question of paramount interest to Levon Stichler as well. His eyes widened in anticipation of Snapper's answer, which was: "Dump him."

"Where?" asked Edie.

"Far away," Snapper said. "Fucker meant to kill me."

"It was a pitiful try, you've got to admit."

"So? It's the thought that counts."

Edie said, "Look at him, Snapper. He's not worth the bullet."

Levon Stichler wasn't the slightest bit insulted. Edie pulled the gag from his mouth, prompting the old man to spit repeatedly on the floor. The gag was a dust cloth that tasted pungently of furniture wax.

"Thank you," he panted.

"Shut up, asshole," said Snapper.

Edie Marsh said: "What's your name, Grampy?"

Levon Stichler told her. He explained why he'd come to assassinate the mobile-home salesman.

"Well, somebody beat you to it." Edie described the visit by the burly fellow with the two dachshunds. "He took your scumbag Tony away. I'm certain he won't be back."

"Oh," said Levon Stichler. "Who are you?"

Snapper gave Edie a cranky look. "See? I told you we gotta kill the fucker."

The old man immediately apologized for being so nosy. Snapper said it didn't matter, they were going to dump him anyway.

Levon said, "That's really not necessary." When he began to plead his case, Snapper decided to gag him again. The old man coughed out the dust rag, crying, "Please-I've got a heart condition!"

"Good." Snapper ordered Edie Marsh to go fetch the auger spike. Levon Stichler got the message. He stopped talking and allowed his mouth to be muffled.

"Cover his eyes, too," said Snapper.

Edie used a black chiffon scarf that she'd found in Neria Torres's underwear drawer. It made for quite a classy blindfold.

"That too tight?" she asked.

Levon Stichler grunted meekly in the negative.

"Now what?" she said to Snapper.

He shrugged unhappily. "You got any more them Darvons? My fucking leg's on fire."

"Honey, I sure don't—"

"Shit!" With his good leg he kicked Levon Stichler in the ribs, for no reason except that the old man was a convenient target. Edie pulled Snapper aside and told him to get a grip, for Christ's sake.

Under her breath: "It's all working out, OK? Reedy signed off on the settlement. All that's left is to wait for the money. Kill this geezer, you'll screw up everything."

Snapper worked his jaw like a steam shovel. His eyes were shot with pain and hangover. "Well, I can't think of nothin' else to do."

Edie said: "Listen. We put old Levon in the car and haul him out to the boonies. We tell him to take his sweet time walking back, otherwise we'll track down each of his grandchildren and ... oh, I don't know—"

"Skin 'em like pigs?"

"Fine. Whatever. The point is to scare the hell out of him, and he'll forget about everything. All he wants to do is live."

Snapper said, "My goddamn leg's near to bust open."

"Go watch TV. I'll look for some pills."

Edie searched the medicine cabinets to see if any useful pharmaceuticals had survived the hurricane. The best she could do was an unopened bottle of Midols. She told Snapper it was generic codeine, and pressed five tablets into his hand. He washed them down with a slug of warm Budweiser.

Edie said, "Is there gas in the Jeep?"

"Yeah. After Sally Jessy we'll go."

"And what is today's topic?"

"Boob jobs gone bad."

"How cheery," said Edie. She went outside to walk Donald and Maria.

After days in a morphine fog, Trooper Brenda Rourke finally felt better. The plastic surgeon promised to get her on the operating-room schedule by the end of the week.