Loud words broke through the whisper of the rain. Augustine decided not to give himself away unless Bonnie Lamb was in trouble. The argument moved closer. Then came a deep huff, the sounds of a clumsy struggle; a bottle shattering on the pavement.

One of the men blurted: "Hold the damn gun while I strangle this fucker."

Snapper's consternation about the two remaining bullets in the .357 was well founded. A crack marksman he was not.

A police report dated July 7, 1989, showed that one Lester Maddox Parsons was arrested for shooting Theodore "Sunny" Shea outside the Satellite Grille in Dania, Florida. The victim was not just a garden-variety crack dealer, as Snapper claimed after the incident. In truth, Sunny Shea was his longtime business partner. The scope of their enterprises extended beyond drugs to stolen guns, jewelry, clothing, patio furniture, stereos, even a shipment of baby food on one occasion. Eventually Sunny Shea came to suspect Snapper of cheating him on the proceeds, and confronted him with the accusation one humid summer night in the doorway of the Satellite Grille, before sixteen eyewitnesses.

Snapper's indignant response was to display a 9mm Clock (swiped from the glove box of an unmarked Coral Springs police car) and attempt to empty said weapon into Sunny Shea. In all, Snapper fired eleven times from a distance of eight feet. Only six rounds struck Sunny Shea, and not one nicked a vital organ-quite a feat, considering that Sunny Shea weighed only one hundred thirty pounds and hadn't an ounce of fat on his body. The hapless shooting exhibition was even more remarkable because Snapper was stone sober at the time.

Sunny Shea never lost consciousness, and was extremely cooperative when police inquired about the identity of his assailant. The two detectives who hauled Lester Maddox Parsons to the Broward County Jail ridiculed him mercilessly about his lousy aim.

The next morning, when they came to his cell to inform him that the charge of attempted first-degree murder had been upgraded, Snapper glowed with vindication. Then he learned it wasn't one of his shots that had killed his scrawny, obnoxious partner-some bone-head in the emergency room had injected Theodore "Sunny" Shea with an antibiotic to which he was virulently, and fatally, allergic.

Snapper pleaded out to a chickenshit manslaughter and got easy time, but his confidence in the efficacy of handguns was ruined forever. Two bullets in a .357 was scarcely better than no bullets at all.

Which was why he didn't want to waste them on Avila, the whiny spic. He was the last guy on earth that Snapper expected to see at Paradise Palms. He'd materialized like a drowned ghost out of the rainstorm, bitching about the roofing deposit that Snapper had ripped off from Mrs. Whitmark.

"You know who she is? You know who she's married to?" Avila was screeching. Skink and the two women retreated to a dry vantage, under the eaves of the motel, while Avila chased Snapper around the parking lot like a terrier. Their conversation was difficult to follow, but Edie Marsh got the substance of it: Snapper had made a seven-thousand-dollar score.

Funny how he'd forgotten to tell her about it. Same as the wedding ring.

The pistol in Snapper's possession worried Avila but didn't deter him. For eighty miles he'd been praying for Change's protection, and felt moderately imbued. Snapper appeared frazzled and shaky, possibly visited by black spirits.

Avila said, "Gimme the money."

"Eat shit," Snapper growled.

When he turned away, Avila hopped on his back.

Snapper shook him off. Avila pounced again, ripping Snapper's suit and knocking the Johnnie Walker from his hand. The two men locked together, spinning in the mist. Ultimately Snapper backed into a sabal palm tree, slamming Avila against the trunk. He made a true squeak as he slid to the ground.

Snapper, panting, weaved toward Edie: "Hold the damn gun while I strangle this fucker."

Halfheartedly she took the pistol and held it on Bonnie and Skink. Snapper fell upon Avila and breathlessly beat him. Avila was surprised by the clarity of the pain. When his nose exploded under Snapper's fist, he realized he'd been foolhardy to count on beatific intervention. Evidently Chango hadn't forgiven him for the aborted coati sacrifice.

As Snapper's grimy fingernails closed upon his throat, Avila inventoried the multiple sources of his agony: the fractured nose, the sliver of broken whiskey bottle in his right thigh, the unhealed crucifixion hole in his left hand, the goat-related goring in his groin and, soon, a crushed larynx.

He thought: Forget the seven grand. Screw Gar Whit-mark. It's time to run.

Avila brought his right knee hard to Snapper's crotch. Snapper's eyelids fluttered but he didn't release his grip on Avila's neck. Avila kneed him twice more, ultimately producing the desired result. Snapper moaned and rolled away. Avila struggled to his feet. He took three steps and slipped. When he got up again, he heard Snapper rising behind him. Frantically Avila bolted for the road.

The rain made it hard to discern the details of the two men running along Highway One. Neither was large enough to be the governor, or physically fit enough to be Augustine. From where his Highway Patrol car was parked, a hundred yards away, Jim Tile was unable to see if the tall man had a crooked jaw. He might have been any old Keys drunk in a soggy pinstriped suit.

The black Jeep was still parked at the Paradise Palms. The trooper decided to sit still and wait.

Avila made it half a mile before he ran out of strength. He stopped on the Tea-Table Bridge and doubled over, sucking air. He tried to flag passing motorists, but none found room in their icy hearts for a bedraggled, saliva-flecked, blood-spattered hitchhiker. Avila was further dejected to see, framed in the window of a speeding Airstream, a freckle-faced teenaged girl, snapping his photograph.

What a sick world, he thought, when an injured human being becomes a roadside amusement.

Meanwhile, out of the veil of rain came Snapper. He was shambling like a zombie across the bridge. For a weapon he'd selected a rusty axle from an abandoned Jet Ski trailer.

Avila raised both arms in supplication. "Let's forget the whole thing, OK?"

"Don't move." Snapper gripped the axle at one end and brought it high over his head, like a sledgehammer.

With a morose peep, Avila hurled himself sideways off the bridge. The drop was only fourteen feet, but given his dread of heights, it might as well have been fourteen stories. Avila was mildly amazed to survive the impact.

The water was warm and the tide was strong. He let it carry him out the channel toward the ocean, because he wasn't strong enough to swim against it. When the sodden weight of his clothing began to drag him under, he kicked off his shoes and pants, and stripped out of his shirt. Soon the lights from the Overseas Highway were absorbed by darkness and bad weather. Avila could see nothing but the occasional high-altitude flash of heat lightning. When a heavy object thumped him in the small of the back, he was sure it was the snout of a great white shark and that death was imminent.