Carl Hiassen - Stormy Weather

Augustine asked, "Whatdo,you want to do?"

"Be with you for a while. Is that OK?"

"Perfect."

Brightening, Bonnie said, "What about you, Mister Live-for-Today ?"

"You'll be pleased to know I've got a plan."

"That's hard to believe."

"Really," he said. "I'm going to sell Uncle Felix's farm, or what's left of it. And my house, too. Then I intend to find someplace just like this and start again. Someplace on the far edge of things. Still interested?"

"I don't know. Will there be cable?"

"No way."

"Rattlesnakes?"

"Possibly."

"Boy. The edge of the edge." Bonnie pretended to be mulling.

He said, "Ever heard of the Ten Thousand Islands?"

"Somebody counted them all?"

"No, dear. That would take a lifetime."

"Is that your plan?" she asked.

Augustine was familiar with the partner-choosing dilemma. She was deciding whether she wanted an anchor or a sail. He said, "There's a town called Chokoloskee. You might hate it."

"Baloney. Stay right here." Bonnie hopped to her feet.

"Now where are you going?"

"Back to camp for some poetry."

"Sit down. I'm not finished."

She spanked his arm away. "You read to me. Now I-m going to read to you."

What Bonnie had in mind, dashing up the trail, was Whitman. Somewhere in the rusted ambulance was a hardbound volume of "Song of Myself," a poem she'd loved since high school. One line in particular– "In vain the mastodon retreats from its own powder'd bones" -reminded her of Skink.

As she entered the campsite, she spotted him motionless on the ground. Snapper craned over him, making throaty snarls. He was coming down from a sulfurous rage. In one hand was a piece of burnt wood that Bonnie recognized as the governor's hiking torch.

She stood rigid, her fists balled at her sides. Snapper wore a contorted expression made no less malignant by the red-and-chrome bar clamped to his face. He was unaware of Bonnie watching from the tree line. He dropped the torch, snatched up the suitcase and began to run.

Insanely she went after him.

Snapper had been awakened by a cool drizzle. The campsite was still. The one-eyed lunatic was asleep, stretched out in his grubby army duds beneath a tree. There was no sign of Edie Marsh, or the sharpshooter, or the weird broad who'd doused herself with soda pop in the Jeep.

Slowly Snapper sat up. His eyes were crusty and his mouth was ash dry. A clot of black dirt stuck to one eyebrow: For the umpteenth time he tried unsuccessfully to wrench The Club out of his gums. The pain was hideous, as if the bones of his face were spring-loaded to blow apart. He was grateful he couldn't see himself; he must've looked like a fucking circus freak. Bucket-Mouth Man. Dorks lining up to toss softballs down his gullet.

Jesus H. Christ, he thought, I gotta clear the cobwebs.

There on the ground was the suitcase full of cash, yawning, where Skink had left it. The smell pungently reminded Snapper that it hadn't been a nightmare: The asshole had actually pissed on ninety-four thousand perfectly good U.S. dollars.

Snapper tested his legs; left, right, together. Next he clenched his hands, flexed his arms. So far, so good. The second tranquilizer dart finally had worn off.

He rose to his feet. Tenuously he took one step toward the cash. Then another. The iron bar on his jaws was so cumbersome that he almost lost his balance and toppled forward. He tried to hold his breath while he latched the suitcase, but the aroma was unavoidable. Snapper found the water jug and emptied it into his throat. His spluttering failed to disturb the dozing lunatic.

Snapper spied a handy weapon-a length of gummy wood, one end charred.

The big dork must've heard him coming, because he tried to roll away when Snapper swung. The blow caught the man in a shoulder instead of the head, but Snapper heard bones crack. He knew it hurt.

"Ahhheeegggnnn!" he brayed, swinging again and again until the fucker quit rolling and just lay there making a faint hiss, like a tire going flat.

Bonnie had always been scrappy for her size. In junior high she had chased down a boy who'd lifted her skirt in the school cafeteria. The boy's name was Eric Schultz. He was almost six feet tall, foul-mouthed and cocky, a star of the basketball team. He outweighed Bonnie by eighty pounds. When he tried to run away, she tackled him, held him down and punched him in the testicles. Eric Schultz missed the first and second rounds of the basketball playoffs. Bonnie Brooks was suspended from class for three days. Her father said it was worth it; he was proud. Bonnie's mother said she overreacted, because the boy Eric had been held back twice for eighth grade. Bonnie's mother said he'd probably done what he had to Bonnie because he didn't know any better. He does now, Bonnie had said. She agreed with her father: Stupidity was an overworked excuse.

With his bum knee, Snapper was easy to catch. His speed was further hindered by the unwieldy facial contraption, which snagged in the vines and branches. He went down in the same basic configuration as had Eric Schultz-limbs splayed, nose down. It took only a moment for Snapper to realize it was a woman hanging off his shoulders, and not a large one. The casual manner in which he shook free suggested to Bonnie that her rabbit punches were ineffective. Unlike young Eric Schultz, Lester Maddox Parsons had been to prison, where he'd learned much about dirty fighting. He wasn't about to let a one-hundred-pound girl get a clear shot at his jewels.

With both arms he swung the Frenchman's suitcase, knocking Bonnie sideways against the gnarled trunk of an old buttonwood. She landed flat on her back, punching frenetically. The red steel bar across Snapper's cheeks blocked her best jabs. He quickly pinned her wrists, but she stopped kicking only when he dug a knee into her pubic bone.

Beneath the dull deadening weight of his torso, she gradually lost sight of the buzzards and the gathering clouds. Her next view was a glistening, pink, fistulous cave-his mouth, stretched in the shape of a permanent scream. He panted from exertion; hot, necrotic gusts. Bonnie wanted to gag. Something wet and wormy settled on the cleft of her chin.

A lip.

She took it in her teeth and bit hard. Snapper yowled and pulled away. A half second later, Bonnie was stunned by a sharp blow to her temple. The Club. The bastard was trying to beat her with it, using frenzied, snorting sweeps of his head. She had no way to protect herself. Snapper wouldn't release her arms because he didn't need his own for the attack; his gourd was doing all the work. Bonnie was dazed by another white burst of pain. She shut her eyes so she wouldn't have to see his goggling wet hole of a face. She made herself go limp, thinking that unconsciousness would be fine and dandy.

Snapper imagined himself a wild bull in the ring; goring at will. The bitch was helpless beneath him, hardly twitching. He paused to catch his breath, spit blood, and congratulate himself for so cleverly converting a handicap to a martial asset. The cop on the TV commercial was right; The Club was indestructible! Despite the stinging of his lip and the burning in his knee and the electric throbbing in the joints of his jaw, Snapper didn't feel so bad. His pride outweighed the pain. Certainly he'd earned the rights to the Frenchman's hurricane money.

That's when a hand moved between his legs; lightly, like a sparrow on a branch.

"Nnnngggguuuhhh!!"

The bitch grabbed him. Snapper bellowed. He thrashed his head, trying to pummel her with the heavy end of The Club. Then he realized it couldn't be the girl squeezing his balls, because both her wrists remained pinned in the dirt. She wasn't moving a muscle. It had to be somebody else.