Stormy Weather

Edie Marsh returned from the store. Her hair sparkled with tiny raindrops. She handed Bo

She shoved a brown paper bag at Snapper. He took out the Joh

"Take it easy," Edie admonished.

Contemptuously he smacked his lips. "I bet you'd look good completely bald," he said to her. "That guy on the new Star Trek, Gene Luke-you and him could pass for twins."

Edie said, "Touch my hair again. Just try."

He swung the .357 until the barrel came to rest on the tip of Edie's nose. He cocked the hammer and said: "Come on. Somebody talk me out of it."

Bo

Snapper took another sloppy swig of whiskey. The one-eyed man reminded him of the ammunition shortage. "Shoot her, that'd leave only one bullet for the rest of us."

"There's other ways besides the gun."

Skink let loose an avalanche of laughter. "Son, I'm fairly immune to blunt objects and sharp instruments."

Edie's pitch was more blunt. "Pull the trigger," she said to Snapper, "and kiss your hurricane money goodbye. Forty-seven grand goes out the window with my brains."

Snapper's bad mandible began to creak; a sign, Skink hoped, of possible cogitation. The moron was deciding between the long-term rewards from the money and the short-term satisfaction from shooting her. Apparently it wasn't an easy choice.

Skink said, "Consider it an IQ test, chief."

Impulsively Bo

"Stop!" Snapper yelled. "You stop that crazy shit!"

"I'm suffocating in here—"

"I don't care! I don't fucking care."

Bo

The soda pop soaked through her top, so that Snapper could see the lacy outline of a bra and a pale damp oval of bare belly. Skink asked Edie Marsh to put on the air conditioner.

"I tried. It's broken." Edie's voice was empty.

"Don't even think about getting naked," Snapper warned Bo

Yeah, Edie thought. Matches the one between your ears.

"Can we get on with this?" she said sourly. "It is awfully damn humid."

As Bo

But she did care. She couldn't help herself. It was the way she'd been raised: A proper young woman did not douse herself with soda pop in front of total strangers, even felons.

"It's all right," Skink said. "You're scared, that's all."

"I guess I am."

Snapper heard her. With a vulgar chuckle, he said, "Good. Scared is damn well what you ought to be." He was halfway to shitfaced.

Edie drove slowly, fretfully. The man was a keeling wreck. How could they possibly pull this off? She devised a fantasy scenario: If Snapper passed out drunk, she'd push him from the Jeep. Then she'd tell the eccentric couple in the back seat that she was very, very sorry-it was all a terrible misunderstanding. She'd promise them Snapper's share of the Midwest Casualty settlement if they'd forget the whole dreadful evening. She would drive them back to Miami without delay and (to prove she was basically a decent person) offer to replace the gold ring stolen from the lady trooper. The unconscious Snapper would be run over on the highway by a passing shrimp truck and no longer pose a menace to society, or to Edie's future.

Unfortunately, Snapper wasn't nodding off. The Joh

Edie Marsh said, "Could you please not do that?"

Snapper gurgled crapulously, his jaw jutting like a window box. "You're so hot and sweaty, Edie, you oughta do what she almost done. Take off your clothes."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you."

"I would love it. Wouldn't y'all?" He waggled the .357 at Skink and Bo

Bo

Skink said, "Speaking for myself, yes, I'm sure they're delightful. But some other time."

Edie Marsh felt herself blush. Nobody spoke. Snapper began to hum again, accompanied by the metered squeak of the windshield wipers. Ahead, on the ocean side of the highway, Edie saw the electric-blue sign for the Paradise Palms Resort Motel.

Skink shook Levon Stichler out of the carpet, dumping him like a sack of flour on the terrazzo. Somebody yanked off the gag and the blindfold.

The old man's eyes watered at the sudden brightness.

A woman's voice: "You again."

Levon blinked until a face came into focus-the redhead from the hurricane house at Turtle Meadow. The chiffon scarf, Levon's blinder, dangled from her festively painted fingernails. Standing next to the redhead was a wild-looking blonde. She said, "What's your name, sweetheart?"

The redhead wore a diaphanous black bustier, fishnet stockings and stiletto heels. The blonde wore a silver lame teddy that made her shimmer like the hood ornament on a Silver Shadow. The air was sugary with perfume; pure heaven, after three hours of gagging on mildew and carpet fuzz. When Levon Stichler sat up, he found himself in the center of an attentive circle: the two prostitutes, the thug in the pinstriped suit, the pretty long-haired brunette, another young woman, with creamy skin and delicate features, and a large bearded man wearing a flowered shower cap. The bearded man was polishing a glass eye on the sleeve of his jacket.

They were gathered in a small motel room. Levon Stichler said: "What's this all about?" The prostitutes introduced themselves. Bridget and Jasmine.

Snapper dropped to a crouch. Roughly he pinched the back of the old man's neck. "You tried to kill me, 'member?"