Snapper instructed Edie Marsh to take the Turnpike, and watch the damn speedometer. He was pressed against the passenger-side door, keeping the stolen .357 pointed at the freak in the army greens. The young woman was no immediate threat.
The stranger blinked like a craggy tortoise. He said: "How much you get for her ring?"
Snapper frowned. The fucker knew-but how? Edie Marsh didn't take her eyes off the road. "What's he talking about? Whose ring?"
Snapper spied, in the lower margin of his vision, the wandering prow of his jawbone. He said, "Everybody shut the fuck up!"
Leaning forward, the longhair said to Edie: "Your rough-tough boyfriend beat up a policewoman. Ripped off her gun and her mother's wedding band-he didn't tell you?"
Edie shivered. Maybe it was his breath on the nape of her neck, or the slow rumble of his voice, or what he was saying. Meanwhile Snapper waved the police pistol and hollered for the whole world to shut up or fucking die!
He jammed a CD into the dashboard stereo: ninety-five decibels of country heartache. Within minutes his fury passed, soothed by Reba's crooning or possibly the five white pills Edie had given him back at the house. OK, boy, now think.
The original plan was to waylay the nutty old man with the hookers. No problem there. A guy Snapper knew from his Lauderdale days, Johnny Horn, had a small motel down in the Keys. Ideal spot for Levon Stichler to take a short vacation. Snapper's idea was to get one a them cheap disposable cameras, so the hookers could take some pictures, the kind a respectable man wouldn't want his grandkiddies to see. Two or three days tied naked to a motel bed, the old fart wouldn't care to recall he'd ever set foot at 15600 Calusa Drive. If he promised to behave, then possibly the disposable camera would get disposed of. The old man could make his way back to Miami with nothing but a bed rash and a sore cock to show for the experience.
Best of all, Snapper wouldn't have to pay for the motel room in the Keys, because Johnny Horn owed him a favor. Two years back, Snapper had more or less repossessed a Corvette convertible from the freeloading boyfriend of one of Johnny Horn's ex-wives. Snapper had driven the Corvette straight to the Port of Miami and, in broad daylight, parked it on a container ship bound for Cartagena. It was a high-risk deal, and Johnny said for Snapper to call the Paradise Palms anytime he needed a place to crash or hide out or take some girl.
Snapper had dreamed up the plan for old man Stichler all by himself, without Edie's input. He surely didn't want to throw all that cleverness out the window, but he couldn't conceive of how to fit the new intruders into his scheme, and he was too fogged from the pills to improvise. It seemed easier to kill the one-eyed freak and his woman companion-and as long as Snapper was being so bold, why not do loony old Levon as well? That way, Snapper reasoned, he wouldn't have to pay the two whores anything, except for gas money and possibly a seafood dinner.
On the downside: How to get rid of three dead bodies? The logistics were daunting. Snapper suspected that his droopy brain wasn't up to the challenge. Killing took energy, and Snapper all of a sudden felt like sleeping for three weeks solid.
He worked up a pep talk for himself, recalling what a wise guy once told him in prison: Dumping bodies is like buying real estate-location, location, location. Snapper thought: Look around, boy. You got your mangrove islands, your Everglades, your Atlantic-mother-fucking-Ocean. What more you want? A fast shot to the head, then let the sharks or the gators or the crabs finish the job. What's so damn difficult about that?
But Jesus, the stakes were high; one measly fuckup and it's back to Raiford for the rest of my life. Probably locked in a ten-by-ten with some humongous horny black faggot weight lifter. Clean and jerk my skinny ass till I walk like Julia Roberts.
And shooting people is awful noisy. Edie Marsh wouldn't go for it, Snapper knew for a fact. She'd make quite a stink. And killing Edie with the others was impractical because (a) he didn't have enough bullets and (b) he couldn't cash the insurance checks without her. Damn.
"What is it?" Edie shouted over Reba.
Snapper made a sarcastic zipper motion across his lips. He thought: I'm so goddamn tired. If only I could have a nap, it would come to me. A new plan.
The one-eyed stranger began to sing along with the stereo. Snapper scrutinized him coldly. How'd he know about the lady trooper? Snapper's hands had a slight tremor. His lips were as dry as ash. What if the bitch had gone and died? What if first she'd gotten a good look at him, or maybe the Jeep? What if it was already on TV, and every cop in Florida was in the hunt?
Snapper told himself to knock it off, think positive. For the first time in days, his busted-up knee didn't hurt so much. That was something to be glad about.
The young woman in the back seat joined her flaky companion in song. She was winging it with the lyrics, but that was all right with Snapper; her voice was pretty.
Edie Marsh tapped the rim of the steering wheel and acted peeved at the amateur chorus. After about three minutes she reached out and poked the Off button on the CD player. Reba fell silent, and so did the chorus.
Snapper announced that the next selection was Travis Tritt.
"Spare us," Edie said. "Hell's your problem?"
The woman in the back seat spoke up: "My name's Bonnie. This is the governor. He prefers to be called 'captain.' "
"Skink will be fine," said the one-eyed man. "And I would kill for some Allman Brothers."
Snapper demanded to know what they wanted, why they'd been snooping at the Torres house. The man who called himself Skink said: "We were looking for you."
"How come?"
"As a favor to a friend. You wouldn't know him."
Edie Marsh said, "You're not making a damn bit of sense."
Something shifted in the bed of the Jeep. The sound was followed by a faint quavering moan.
From the woman, Bonnie: "What are your names?"
Edie Marsh rolled her eyes. Bonnie caught it in the rearview.
Snapper said, "Fuckin' idiots, the both of 'em."
"All I meant," said Bonnie Lamb, "is what should we call you?"
"I'm Farrah Fawcett," Edie said. Nodding at Snapper: "He's Ryan O'Neal."
In discouragement, Bonnie turned toward the window. "Just forget it."
A warm hand settled on Edie's shoulder. "Whoever you are," Skink said intimately, "you make a truly lovely couple."
"Fuck you."
Snapper lunged across the seat and stuck the barrel of the .357 in a crease of the stranger's cheek. "You think I don't got the balls to shoot?"