Something that the snake was pumping into him, through the fleshy, ringed tube that was its mouth.
(II)
Ruth Bridge's lips looked like she'd been punched in the mouth-hard-if one were cynical enough to look closely; her face, in fact, would easily have been pretty were it not for the permanent, uneven swelling. She'd asked the doctor for "Lips like Pam Anderson!" but received something significantly less. She wasn't even aware of it, though, so what did it matter? A positive self-concept was sometimes more important than the truth.
Her body, on the other hand, looked damn good for a gal worn out by thirty-nine years of dope, booze, and onthe-run living. And her breasts? It had been a Miami plastic surgeon who'd done the work-for free, because Ruth had been his sideline plaything for most of her latter twenties. The doctor's name was Levin, and the manner with which he'd inflated Ruth's meager 32-As to prominent 36-Cs was worthy of a certificate of achievement. Dr. Levin had tired of her, though, after so many hotel rendevous, after which she'd ventured to Beverly Hills for a change of scenery and the pesky warrant for check kiting. Here she'd hooked up with another plastic surgeon, one Dr. Winston Prouty, who, in return for Ruth's pleasures, offered a free lip job. Well, Dr. Prouty-jaundiced by a hidden Demerol addiction turned out to demonstrate some howlingly inferior skills. The dirty collagen needle had caused an infection whose scars had never properly healed. Hence, Ruth's overlarge and permanently puffy lips.
In the end, though, it was all relative. These days, most men likely to share company with a woman like Ruth cared less about facial prettiness and more about the auxiliary benefits of unnaturally swollen lips.
The first three dealers in Naples had offered Ruth roughly twenty-five thousand for the watch, but… shit! They'd also insisted on identification. Fuckers know the score, she thought. One had even had the balls to add, "For instance, miss, if I sold this watch and it turned out to be"-he winked at her-"stolen, then I could be charged with a felony." Fuck you, Ruth thought. But Slydes and Jonas had really scored a big one this time. The watch they'd ripped off some broad down South turned out to be a French-made lady's Cartier Baignoire Mini, eighteen-karat gold and studded with diamonds and rubies. List price: fifty-three thousand. Ruth had about had an accident in her overly tight jeans when they'd told her that.
The fourth dealer had been a bit more compliant. "I can take one look at you and know this watch is hot."
Ruth glared. "What's that supposed to mean? What? I look like some lowlife? Some tramp thief trying to peddle stolen goods?"
"Actually, yes. That's exactly what you look like, and I see people like you every day."
"Aw, fuck you!" she dismissed and was about to storm out.
And if you want some advice," the proprietor added, "put your wig on right when you're trying to disguise yourself."
She sneered. "Huh?" Then, Oh, shit! she thought. She'd forgotten to take off the cut-price sweeping redhaired wig. When she'd first picked it up, she tried it on for Jonas and Slydes, striking a sexy pose. "Do I look like Julianne Moore?"
"No," Slydes said, beer in hand. "You look like a hose bag wearing a shitty red wig." The bastard! But it was a good idea; she wore it whenever she jacked money from an ATM. They all had cameras now.
And as for this chump jewelry salesman?
She dragged the wig off, revealing the unkempt blond shag. Fuck him anyway. What could he do?
She gave him the finger and started to leave when he said, "Wait! Don't be hasty!"
When she looked back, he was holding a stack of bills. "There's no way in hell you'll do better than five thousand. And that would be in cash, by the way."
Ooo… Ruth pretended not to be waylaid. He's right. And… that's a lot of money!
"Plus," he added, "ten minutes of your time. In the back. If you know what I mean, and I'm pretty sure you do."
"Buddy!" she celebrated. "You got a deal!"
Ruth was the kind of woman who could relate to those terms. He hadn't even lasted five minutes, which was even better, and now all that money formed a big clot in her purse. She'd already tapped five hundred dollars out of the ATM (you could only take out five hundred dollars per twenty-four-hour period); hence, the wig. It was her job to hit a different machine each day until everything was gone… or until somebody found the woman's body and the bank froze the account. The lady had bucks-thirty grand in her checking account!
All in a day's work… Back down the main drag in the dented white van the boys had jacked from some one in Georgia. She lived with Slydes and Jonas in their dead daddy's house back at the far corner of Collier County, near the Everglades Highway. When she'd been dating Slydes, she'd cheated on him with Jonas, and when she'd been dating Jonas, she'd cheated on him with Slydes. So they decided to keep it simple; they were both her boyfriends now.
Slydes poached gator; he was the brawn. Jonas grew pot; he was the brains. (While Slydes had dropped out of school in seventh grade, Jonas had actually made it to college, if only for one semester, taking horticulture and botany classes). Beefy, tall, and bearded, Slydes didn't look anything like his short and slightly younger brother. In fact, they had a slew of brothers, none of whom looked anything like each other. Even in areas south of the belt, Jonas and Slydes couldn't have been more different-to put it one way, Jonas got all the brains of the bloodline, while Slydes got… something else. The entire observation certainly suggested a moral deficit on the part of their biological mother.
Most of the time, Ruth felt more like their sister than a mutual lover, and given the oddity that Ruth's mother had been good friends with the boys' father-well, that suggested something to them, too (which they never discussed.) Fuck it, was Ruth's overall view. She helped the brothers work their scams and gigs, and they all partied together: a great big happy dysfunctional family. It works, so why worry about it?
The ramshackle house sat at the end of an unpaved road that twisted deep into the woods. Deliverance, Ruth always thought. She made a face the second she got out of the van. Fuck! Slydes has the tanning drum going… Between the hides and the meat, Slydes could make about three hundred dollars per gatoractually, more now that gator ribs were big in all the Florida restaurants. (Alligators had a lot of ribs.) They had a slaughterhouse out back, and plenty of freezers for storage in between runs. He'd sell the meat under the table to the restaurants, and then dealers would buy the untrimmed hides for the European market. Ruth liked gator meat, she supposed, but what made her sick was the smell that often permeated the house: the stench of Slydes's tanning chemicals.
"Hey, baby," Slydes greeted when she pushed open the rickety door. "Give your man a great big kiss."
Ruth did, getting beer fumes along with the passion.
Jonas rose from a beaten chair. "Ruthie, I thought you were givin' your man a great big kiss."
Ruthie smirked. In truth she was starting to get tired of this threesome, but… The three of us work so great together. She feigned more passion, then tasted more beer breath tinged with pot.
"So what'choo get for the old bitch's watch?" Jonas called over. "It looked damn nice."
"Did ya get five hundred?"
"I got Jack Fuck," Ruth complained. "Twenty-five bucks," and then she handed Slydes a twenty and a five. "Can you believe it? It was a knockoff."
"Huh?"
"It was a fake Cartier. They make 'em in China, and pilots and flight attendants bring 'em back in their luggage to sell here. They're all over the place. Fake Rolex, fake Cartier, fake whatever."
"Well, I'll be damned," Slydes said, scratching his heavy beard.
"Ain't that a kick in the ass?" Jonas said. "The bitch was a phony. Bet her jewelry's all that fake Chinese shit too."
"But I tapped another five hundred from her checking," Ruth said, and handed it over. "So nobody's-re- ported her missing to the bank yet."