Stormy Weather

Mrs. Max Lamb fell asleep long before he did. Shortly after midnight, the telephone began to ring in the kitchen. Augustine didn't get out of bed to answer it, because he didn't want to wake his new friend. He probably could have moved her gently to one side of the bed, but he didn't even try.

She was sleeping so soundly, and he felt so good.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Bo

Naturally it was Bo

"What's going on!" Max Lamb demanded. "Bo

"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 rotte

And if that wasn't enough, Max now had to deal with a flighty, recalcitrant wife in Florida.

Bo

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, Bo

When Max Lamb got highly agitated, he acquired a frenetic rasp that his coworkers likened to that of an asthmatic on amphetamines. Bo

"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!" Bo

"I don't trust him." Max Lamb's normal vibrant voice had returned, indicating a beneficial drop in blood pressure.

Bo

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 Bo

She heard Max say, "I'm flying to Mexico tomorrow. When I get back, I expect you to be here." Bo

"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 una

Dumb bitches! Avila steamed. They've been losing at Indian bingo again. His wife and her mother were practically addicted.