She was sleeping so soundly, and he felt so good.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bonnie Lamb rolled over at three in the morning, freeing Augustine to rise and answer the phone, which had been ringing intermittently for hours.
Naturally it was Bonnie's husband in New York. Augustine anticipated a lively exchange.
"What's going on!" Max Lamb demanded. "Bonnie's fine. She's asleep."
"Answer me!"
"She left you several messages. She wasn't up to the airplane trip"
"Wake her, please. Tell her it's important." As he waited, Max Lamb reflected over the unalloyed rottenness of his long thankless day. The NIH press conference declaiming the hazards of Bronco cigarets made CNN, MTV and all the networks, followed of course by prominent barbs in the Leno and Letterman monologues. The wiseass MTV coverage was particularly aggravating because it struck directly at young female smokers, a key market component of Bronco's booming sales growth. Front-page stories were expected the following morning in the Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. The word "disaster" was insufficient to describe the crisis, as the splenetic chairman of Durham Gas Meat &c Tobacco adamantly insisted on a total advertising embargo against all publications reporting the NIH findings-which was to say, all newspapers and magazines in the United States. The atmosphere at Rodale &c Burns was sepulchral, due to the many millions of dollars that the agency stood to lose if Bronco's print ads were yanked. Max Lamb had spent the better part of the afternoon attempting to contact DGM&T's chairman in Guadalajara, where he was receiving thrice-daily injections of homogenized sheep semen to arrest the malignant tumors in his lungs. Workers at the clinic said the chairman was taking no calls, and refused to patch Max Lamb through to the old geezer's room.
And if that wasn't enough, Max now had to deal with a flighty, recalcitrant wife in Florida.
Bonnie's voice was husky from sleep. "Honey?" she said.
Max gripped the receiver as if it were the neck of a squirming rattlesnake. "Exactly what's going on down there!"
"I'm sorry. I need a few more days."
"Why aren't you at the motel?"
"I fell asleep here."
"With the skulls? Jesus Christ, Bonnie."
When Max Lamb got highly agitated, he acquired a frenetic rasp that his coworkers likened to that of an asthmatic on amphetamines. Bonnie didn't blame her husband for getting upset that she was with Augustine. Trying to explain was pointless, because she didn't yet comprehend it herself. Her attempted seduction-that she understood too well. But the urge to go road-tripping with the governor, the lack of interest in returning home to begin her new marriage ... confusing emotions, indeed.
"I still don't feel very well, Max. Maybe it's exhaustion."
"You can sleep on the plane. Or in a damn motel."
"All right, honey, I'll get a room."
"Has he tried anything?"
"No!" Bonnie said sharply. "He's been a perfect gentleman." Thinking: I'm the one you've got to worry about, buddy boy.
"I don't trust him." Max Lamb's normal vibrant voice had returned, indicating a beneficial drop in blood pressure.
Bonnie decided it was safe to point out that if it weren't for Augustine, Max would still be kidnapped.
That provoked a grinding silence on the other end. Then: "There's something not right about him."
"Oh, and you're perfectly normal, Max. Driving hundreds of miles to take movies of wrecked houses and crying babies."
A movement by Augustine caught Bonnie Lamb's attention. With a mischievous grin, he produced three plump grapefruits and began to juggle, dancing barefoot around the kitchen. Bonnie covered her mouth to keep from giggling into the phone.
She heard Max say, "I'm flying to Mexico tomorrow. When I get back, I expect you to be here." Bonnie's eyes followed the flying citrus. "Of course I'll be there." The promise sounded so anemic that her husband couldn't possibly have believed it. Bonnie felt a wave of sadness. Max wasn't stupid; surely he knew something was wrong. She took a slow deep breath. Augustine slipped out of the kitchen and left her alone. "Bonnie?"
"Yes, honey."
"Don't you want to know why I'm going to Mexico?"
"Mexico," she said, pensively.
Thinking: He's going to Mexico.
Asking: "Will you be gone long, Max?"
And wondering: Who's this strange, reckless woman who has climbed inside my skin!
Avila didn't tell his wife about his harrowing brush with crucifixion, for she would've massaged it into a divine parable and shared it with all the neighbors. Once, Avila's wife had seen the face of the Virgin Mary in a boysenberry pancake, and phoned every TV station in Miami. No telling how far she'd run with a lion story. Locking himself in the bathroom, Avila bandaged his throbbing hand and waited for his wife to depart for the grocery store. When the coast was clear, he grabbed a shovel from the garage, crept to the backyard and excavated a Tupperware box full of cash that was buried under a mango tree. The money was his wife's brother's share of a small-time marijuana venture. Avila's wife's brother resided in state prison for numerous felony convictions unrelated to the pot, so Avila and his wife had promised to baby-sit the cash until his parole, sometime around the turn of the century. Avila didn't approve of pilfering a relative's life savings, but it was an emergency. If Gar Whitmark didn't get his seven grand immediately he would call the authorities and have Avila thrown in a cell with a voracious pervert. That's how powerful Whitmark was, or so Avila believed.
He dug energetically for the Tupperware, ignoring the pain of the nail wound. He was spurred by the putrid-sweet stench of rotting mangos, and a fear that one of his many in-laws would arrive unannounced-Avila wanted nobody to know he'd been ripped off by one of his own crooked roofers. He unearthed the container without difficulty, and eagerly pried off the lid. He removed seventy damp one-hundred-dollar bills and wadded them into a pocket. But something wasn't right: Money appeared to be missing from his wife's brother's stash. Avila's suspicion was confirmed by a hasty count; the Tupperware box was short by an additional four grand.
Dumb bitches! Avila steamed. They've been losing at Indian bingo again. His wife and her mother were practically addicted.
To confront the women would have given Avila great pleasure, but it also would've exposed his own clandestine filching. Ruefully he reburied the Tupperware, and concealed the disturbed topsoil with a mat of leaves and lawn cuttings. Then he drove to the Gar Whitmark Building, where he was made to wait in the lobby for ninety minutes, like a common peon.
When a secretary finally led him into Gar Whitmark's private office, Avila spoiled any chance for a civil exchange by asking the corporate titan what the hell was wrong with his scalp, was that a fungus or what? Avila, who had never before seen hair plugs, hadn't meant to be rude, but Gar Whitmark reacted explosively. He shoved Avila to the floor, snatched the seven grand from his hand, knelt heavily on his chest and spewed verbal abuse. Whitmark wasn't a large man, but he was fit from many afternoons of country-club tennis. Avila chose not to resist; he was thinking lawsuit. Whitmark's eyes bulged in rage, and he cursed himself breathless, but he did not punch Avila even once. Instead he got up, smoothed the breast of his Italian suit, straightened his necktie and presented the disheveled con man with an itemized estimate from Killebrew Roofing Co. for the staggering sum of $23,250.
Avila was crestfallen, though not totally surprised: Whitmark had selected the best, and most expensive, roofers in all South Florida. Also, the most honest. From his days as a crooked inspector, Avila sourly recalled the few times he'd tried to shake down Killebrew crews for payoffs, only to be chased like a skunk from the construction sites. Killebrew, like Gar Whitmark, had some heavy juice downtown.