"Of course. He told us to expect him late this afternoon."

"That's perfect."

"And don't you worry. I won't say a word to spoil it."

Augustine said, "Ma'am, I cannot thank you enough."

After a day of inept drinking and arduous self-pity, Max Lamb took a flight from Guadalajara to Miami. There he intended to quit smoking, reclaim his brainwashed spouse and reconstruct his life. Another honeymoon was essential-but, this time, someplace far from Florida.

Hawaii, Max thought. Maybe even Australia.

His head was a cinder block. The tequila hangover fueled vivid, horrific dreams on the plane. Once he awakened clawing at an invisible shock collar, his neck on fire. In the nightmare it was Bonnie and not the kidnapper wielding the Tri-Tronics remote control, diabolically pushing the buttons. An hour later came another dream; again his wife. This time they were making love on the deck of an airboat, skimming across the Everglades under a blue porcelain sky. Bonnie was on top of him with her eyes half open, the sawgrass whipping her cheeks. Clinging to her bare shoulder was a monkey-the same psoriatic pest that Max had videotaped after the hurricane! In the dream, Max couldn't see the face of the airboat driver, but believed it was the quiet young man who juggled skulls. As Bonnie bucked her hips, the vile monkey hung on like a tiny wrangler. Suddenly it rose on its hind legs to display a miniature pink erection. That's when Max screamed and woke up. He was wide-eyed but calmer by the time the plane landed.

Then, at the Miami airport, his tequila phantasms were reignited by a newspaper headline:

Remains in Fox Hollow Identified as Mob Figure; Believed Mauled, Devoured by Escaped Cat.

Max bought the paper and read the story in horror. A gangster named Ira Jackson had been gobbled by a wild lion that broke out of a wildlife farm during the storm. The gruesome details heightened the urgency of Max's mission.

He arrived at Augustine's home with a prepared speech and, if necessary, a legal threat. The lights were off. Nobody answered the door. In the absence of confrontation, Max was emboldened to slip around to the backyard.

The sliding glass door on the porch was unlocked. Inside the house, it was stuffy and warm. Max started the air conditioner and turned on every lamp he could find. He wanted to advertise his presence; he didn't want to be found creeping through the halls in darkness, like a common burglar.

Thrilled by his own daring, Max combed the place for signs of his wife. Hanging in a closet was the outfit she'd worn on the day he was kidnapped. Since the rental car had been looted of their belongings, Max reasoned that Bonnie must now be wearing somebody else's clothes, or her folks had wired some cash-or perhaps Augustine had bought her an expensive new wardrobe. Wasn't that what wife-stealers did?

Max Lamb forced himself to enter the guest room. He purposely avoided the wall of skulls, but shuddered anyway under the dissipated stares. He was pleased to find the bed linens rumpled exclusively on the left side– Bonnie's favorite. A depression in the lone pillow seemed, upon inspection, to match the shape of a young woman's head. The bed showed no manifest evidence of male visitation.

An oak dresser yielded an assortment of female clothing, from bras to blue jeans, in an intriguing range of sizes. Relics of Augustine's ex-girlfriends, Max assumed. One of them must have stood six feet two, judging by the Amazonian cut of her black exercise leggings. Max located several petite items that would have fit his wife, including a pair of powder-blue sweat socks in a tidy mound on the hardwood floor. His outlook improved; at least she was wearing borrowed clothes.

He steeled himself for the next survey: Augustine's room.

The man's bed looked like a grenade had been set off under the sheets. Max Lamb thought: He's either having fantastic sex or horrible nightmares. The disarray made it impossible to determine if two persons had shared the mattress; the cast of A Chorus Line could have slept there, for all Max could tell.

Uncertainty nibbled at his ego. He got an idea– distasteful but effective. He bent over Augustine's bed and put his nose to the linens whiffing for a trace of Bonnie's perfume. Uncharacteristically, Max Lamb couldn't recall the brand name of the fragrance, but he'd never forget its orchard scent.

He sniffed in imaginary grids, starting at the headboard and working his way down the mattress. An explosive sneeze announced his findings: Paco Rabanne for men. Max recognized the scent because he wore it himself (in spite of a near-incapacitating allergy) every Monday, for the sixth-floor meetings at Rodale.

Paco and laundry bleach, that's all Max detected on Augustine's sheets.

One more place to check: the wastebasket in the bathroom. Grimly Max pawed through the litter: no used condoms, thank God.

Later, stretched out on Augustine's sofa, Max realized that Bonnie's faithfulness, or possible lack thereof, wasn't the most pressing issue. It was her sanity. Somehow they'd snowed her, those madmen. Like some weird cult-one eats road pizza, the other fo'ndles human skulls.

How could such a bright girl let herself be brainwashed by such freaks!

Max Lamb decided on a bold move. He composed a script for himself and rehearsed it for an hour before picking up the phone. Then he dialed the apartment in New York and left the message for his wandering wife. The ultimatum.

Afterwards Max called back to hear how it sounded on the answering machine. His voice was so steely that he scarcely recognized himself.

Excellent, he thought. Just what Bonnie needs to hear.

If only she calls.

Avila's wife snidely announced that his expensive san-teria goats were in the custody of Animal Control. One had been captured grazing along the shoulder of the Don Shula Expressway, while the other had turned up at a car wash, butting its horns through the grillwork of a leased Jaguar sedan. Avila's wife said it made the Channel 7 news.

"So? What do you want me to do?" Avila demanded.

"Oh, forget about! Three hundred dollars, chew jess forget about!"

"You want me to steal the goats back? OK, tonight I'll drive to the animal shelter and break down the fence and kidnap the damn things. That make you happy? While I'm there I'll grab you some kittens and puppies, too. Maybe a big fat guinea pig for your mother, no?"

"I hate chew! I hate chew!"

Avila shook his head. "Here we go again."

"Chew and Chango, your faggot orichal"

"Louder," Avila said. "Maybe you can wake some of your dead relatives in Havana."

The phone rang. He picked it up and turned his back on his wife, who hurled a can of black beans and stormed from the kitchen in a gust of English expletives.