Bonnie Brooks acted decisively. First she dumped the jerk, then she got him fired from the university. Subsequent boyfriends were more loyal and forthcoming, but what they lacked in dishonesty they made up for with indolence. Bonnie's mother grew tired of cooking them meals and deflecting their halfhearted offers to help dry the dishes. She couldn't wait for her daughter to graduate from school and find herself a grown-up man.
Good or bad, jobs in journalism were hard to come by. Like many of her classmates, Bonnie Brooks wound up writing publicity blurbs and press releases. She went to work first for the City of Chicago Parks Department and then for a baby-food company that was eventually purchased by Crespo Mills Internationale. There Bonnie was promoted to the job of assistant corporate publicist. The title was attached to a salary that ten tough years in most city newsrooms wouldn't have earned. As for the writing, it was as elementary as it was unsatisfying. In addition to pabulums and breakfast cereals, Crespo Mills manufactured whipped condiment spreads, peanut butter, granola bars, cookies, crackers, trail mix, flavored popcorn, bread sticks and three styles of croutons. In no time, Bonnie Brooks ran out of appetizing adjectives. Attempts at lyrical originality were discouraged by her Crespo supervisors; during one especially dreary streak, she was required to use the word "tasty" in fourteen consecutive press releases. When Max Lamb asked her to marry him and move to New York, Bonnie didn't hesitate to quit her job.
Max could take only a few days off from work, so they decided to take their honeymoon at Disney World a corny choice, but Bonnie figured anything was better than Niagara Falls. She knew that a waterfall, no matter how grandiose, wouldn't hold Max's interest. Neither, it turned out, did Mickey Mouse. Two days at the Magic Kingdom and Max was as antsy as a cat burglar.
Then the hurricane blew in, and he just had to go see....
Bonnie had wanted to stay in Orlando, stay cuddled under the scratchy motel sheets and make love while the rain drummed on the windows. Why wasn't that enough for him?
She'd almost asked that very question as they sat in the dark on Augustine's patio after the adventure in Stiltsville. And later, on the way to the airport. And again, standing at the Delta gate, when he'd hugged her in a loose and distracted way, his hair and shirt reeking of cigarets.
But Bonnie hadn't asked. The moment wasn't right; he was a man with a purpose. A grown-up man, just like her mother wanted her to find. Except her mother thought Max was an asshole. Her father, well, he thought Max Lamb was a fine young fella. He thought all Bonnie's boyfriends had been fine young fellas.
She wondered what her father would think of her now, on the way to a hospital, scrunched in the front seat of a pickup truck between a one-eyed, toad-smoking kidnapper and a plane-crash survivor who juggled skulls.
Brenda Rourke's head was fractured in three places, and one of her cheeks needed reconstruction. She was bleeding under the right temporal bone, but doctors had managed to stanch it. A plastic surgeon had repaired a U-shaped gash on her forehead, stitching the loose flap above the hairline.
Bonnie Lamb had never seen such terrible wounds. Even the governor seemed shaken. Augustine fastened his eyes on his shoetops-the sounds and smells of the hospital were too familiar. He felt parched.
Jim Tile held both of Brenda's hands in one of his own. Her eyes were open but unfocused; she had no sense of anyone besides Jim at her bedside. She was trying to talk through the drugs and the pain; he leaned closer to listen.
After a while he straightened, announcing in a low, angry voice, "The bastard stole her ring. Her mother's wedding ring."
Skink slipped from the room so quietly that Bonnie and Augustine didn't notice immediately. There was no trace of him outside the door, but a rush of blue and white uniforms attracted them to the end of the hall. The governor was in the nursery, strolling among the newborns. He carried an infant in the crook of each arm. The babies slept soundly, and he studied them with profound sadness. To Bonnie Lamb he appeared harmless, despite the rebellious beard and the grubby combat pants and the army boots. A trio of husky orderlies conferred at a water fountain; apparently a negotiation had already been attempted, with poor results. Calmly Jim Tile entered the nursery and returned the infants to their glass cribs.
Nobody intervened when the trooper led Skink out of the hospital, because it looked like a routine arrest; another loony street case hauled to the stockade: Jim Tile, his arm around the madman, walking him briskly down the maze of pale-green corridors; the two of them talking intently; Bonnie and Augustine dodging wheel-chairs and gurneys and trying to keep up.
When they reached the parking lot, Jim Tile said he had to go to work. "The President's coming, and guess who gets to clear traffic."
He folded a piece of paper into Skink's hand and got into the patrol car. Wordlessly Skink settled in the bed of Augustine's pickup and lay down. His good eye was fixed on the clouds, and his arms were folded across his chest. .
Augustine asked Jim Tile: "What do we do with him?"
"That's entirely up to you." The trooper sounded exhausted.
Bonnie Lamb asked about Brenda Rourke. Jim Tile said the doctors expected her to pull through.
"What about the guy who did it?"
"They haven't caught him," the trooper replied, "and they won't." He strapped on the seat belt, locked the door, adjusted his sunglasses. "Place used to be something special," he said absently. "Long, long time ago."
A feral cry rose from the bed of the pickup truck. Jim Tile blinked over the rims of his shades. "It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Lamb. You and your husband do what's right. The captain, he'll understand."
Then the trooper drove off.
On the way to the airport hotel, where Max Lamb had reserved a day room for her, Bonnie slid across the front seat and rested her cheek on Augustine's shoulder. He was dreading this part, saying good-bye. It was always easier as a bitter cleaving, when suitcases snapped shut, doors slammed, taxis screeched out of the driveway. He checked the dashboard clock-less than three hours until her flight.
Through the back window of the truck, Bonnie saw that Skink had pulled the flowered cap over his face and drawn himself into a loose-jointed variation of a fetal curl.
She said, "I wonder what's on that piece of paper."
"My guess," said Augustine, "it's either a name or an address."
"Of what?"
"It's just a guess," he said, but he told her anyway.
That night he didn't have to say good-bye, because Bonnie Lamb didn't go home to New York. She canceled her flight and returned to Augustine's house. Her phone messages for Max were not returned until after midnight, when she was already asleep in the skull room.
Shortly after noon on August 28, the telephone in Tony Torres's kitchen started ringing.