Stormy Weather

"You could learn." With a pocketknife, Skink opened the cardboard box. The box was full of Bronco cigarets, probably four dozen cartons. Max Lamb failed to conceal his alarm.

The kidnapper asked how he could be sure of a product until he tested it himself. Grimly Max responded: "I also do the ads for raspberry-scented douche, but I don't use the stuff."

"Careful," said Skink, brightly, "or you'll give me another brainstorm." He opened a pack of Broncos. He tapped one out and inserted it between Max's lips. He struck a match on the wall of the barn and lit the cigaret.

"Well?"

Max spit out the cigaret. "This is ridiculous."

Skink retrieved the soggy Bronco and replaced it in Max's frowning mouth. "You got two choices," he said, fingering the remote control, "smoke or be smoked."

Reluctantly Max Lamb took a drag on the cigaret. Immediately he began to cough. It worsened as Skink tied him upright to a post. "You people are a riddle to me, Max. Why you come down here. Why you act the way you do. Why you live such lives."

"For God's sake—"

"Shut up now. Please."

Skink dug through the backpack and took out a Walkman. He chose a damp corner of the barn and put on the headphones. He lighted what appeared to be a joint, except it didn't smell like marijuana.

"What's that?" Max asked.

"Toad." Skink took a hit. After a few minutes, his good eye rolled back in his head and his neck went limp.

Max Lamb went through the Broncos like a machine. Whenever Skink opened an eye, he tapped a finger to his neck-a menacing reminder of the shock collar. Max smoked and smoked. He was finishing number twenty-three when Skink shook out of the stupor and rose.

"Damn good toad." He plucked the Bronco from Max's mouth.

"I feel sick, captain."

Skink untied him and told him to rest up. "Tomorrow you're going to leave a message for your wife. You're going to arrange a meeting."

"What for?"

"So I can observe the two of you together. The chemistry, the starry eyes, all that shit. OK?"

Skink went outside and crawled under the station wagon, where he curled up and began to snore. Max coughed himself to sleep in the barn.

Bo

Bo

As she'd hoped, Augustine had the good ma

When he walked in, she felt herself blush. "I'm so sorry," she blurted, "for last night."

"Why? Did you take advantage of me?" He went to the refrigerator and took out a carton of eggs. "I'm a heavy sleeper," he said. "Easy prey for sex-crazed babes."

"Especially newlyweds."

"Oh, they're the worst," said Augustine. "Ravenous harlots. You want scrambled or fried?"

"Fried." She sat at the table. She tore open a packet of NutraSweet and managed to miss the coffee cup entirely. "Please believe me. I don't usually sleep with strange men."

"Sleeping is fine. It's the screwing you want to watch out for." He was peeling an orange at the sink. "Relax, OK? Nothing happened."

Bo

"You're very welcome, Mrs. Lamb." He glanced over his shoulder. "What's so fu

"The jeans."

"Don't tell me there's a hole."

"No. It's just-well, you got up in the middle of the night to put them on. It was a sweet gesture."

"Actually, it was more of a precaution." The eggs sizzled when Augustine dropped them into the hot pan. "I'm surprised you even noticed," he said, causing Bo

In the middle of breakfast, the phone rang. It was the Medical Examiner's Office-another John Doe was being hauled to the county morgue. The coroner on duty wanted Bo

"Can they make me go?"

"I don't think so."

"Because it's not Max," Bo

"A white male is all they said. Apparent homicide."

The last word hung in the air like sulfur. Bo

"Probably not," Augustine agreed. "We don't have to go."

She got up and went to the bathroom. Soon Augustine heard the shower ru

"I guess I need to be sure," she said.

Augustine nodded. "You'll feel better."

Snapper's real name was Lester Maddox Parsons. His mother named him after a Georgia politician best known for scaring off black restaurant customers with an ax handle. Snapper's mother believed Lester Maddox should be President of the United States and the whole white world; Snapper's father leaned toward James Earl Ray. When Snapper was barely seven years old, his parents took him to his first Ku Klux Klan rally; for the occasion, Mrs. Parsons dressed her son in a costume sewn from white muslin pillowcases; she was especially proud of the pointy little hood. The other Klansmen and their wives fawned over Lester, remarking on the youngster's handsome Southern features-baffling praise, because all that was visible of young Lester were his beady brown eyes, peeping through the slits of his sheet. He thought: I could be a Negro, for all they know!

Still, the boy enjoyed Klan rallies because there was great barbecue and towering bonfires. He was disappointed when his family stopped attending, but he couldn't argue with his parents' reason for quitting. They referred to it as The Accident, and Lester would never forget the night. His father had gotten customarily shitfaced and, when the climactic moment came to light the cross, accidentally ignited the local Grand Kleagle instead. In the absence of a fire hose, the frantic Klansmen were forced to save their blazing comrade by spritzing him with well-shaken cans of Schlitz beer. Once the fire was extinguished, they placed the charred Kleagle in the bed of Lester's father's pickup and drove to the hospital. Although the man survived, his precious anonymity was lost forever. A local television crew happened to be outside the emergency room when the Kleagle-hoodless, his sheet in scorched tatters– arrived. Once his involvement in the Klan was exposed on TV, the man resigned as district attorney and moved upstate to Macon. Lester's father blamed himself, a sentiment echoed in harsher terms by the other Klansmen. Morale in the local chapter further deteriorated when a newspaper revealed that the young doctor who had revived the dying Kleagle was a black man, possibly from Sava