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Loud words broke through the whisper of the rain. Augustine decided not to give himself away unless Bo
One of the men blurted: "Hold the damn gun while I strangle this fucker."
Snapper's consternation about the two remaining bullets in the .357 was well founded. A crack marksman he was not.
A police report dated July 7, 1989, showed that one Lester Maddox Parsons was arrested for shooting Theodore "Su
Snapper's indignant response was to display a 9mm Clock (swiped from the glove box of an unmarked Coral Springs police car) and attempt to empty said weapon into Su
Su
The next morning, when they came to his cell to inform him that the charge of attempted first-degree murder had been upgraded, Snapper glowed with vindication. Then he learned it wasn't one of his shots that had killed his scrawny, obnoxious partner-some bone-head in the emergency room had injected Theodore "Su
Snapper pleaded out to a chickenshit manslaughter and got easy time, but his confidence in the efficacy of handguns was ruined forever. Two bullets in a .357 was scarcely better than no bullets at all.
Which was why he didn't want to waste them on Avila, the whiny spic. He was the last guy on earth that Snapper expected to see at Paradise Palms. He'd materialized like a drowned ghost out of the rainstorm, bitching about the roofing deposit that Snapper had ripped off from Mrs. Whitmark.
"You know who she is? You know who she's married to?" Avila was screeching. Skink and the two women retreated to a dry vantage, under the eaves of the motel, while Avila chased Snapper around the parking lot like a terrier. Their conversation was difficult to follow, but Edie Marsh got the substance of it: Snapper had made a seven-thousand-dollar score.
Fu
The pistol in Snapper's possession worried Avila but didn't deter him. For eighty miles he'd been praying for Change's protection, and felt moderately imbued. Snapper appeared frazzled and shaky, possibly visited by black spirits.
Avila said, "Gimme the money."
"Eat shit," Snapper growled.
When he turned away, Avila hopped on his back.
Snapper shook him off. Avila pounced again, ripping Snapper's suit and knocking the Joh
Snapper, panting, weaved toward Edie: "Hold the damn gun while I strangle this fucker."
Halfheartedly she took the pistol and held it on Bo
As Snapper's grimy fingernails closed upon his throat, Avila inventoried the multiple sources of his agony: the fractured nose, the sliver of broken whiskey bottle in his right thigh, the unhealed crucifixion hole in his left hand, the goat-related goring in his groin and, soon, a crushed larynx.
He thought: Forget the seven grand. Screw Gar Whit-mark. It's time to run.
Avila brought his right knee hard to Snapper's crotch. Snapper's eyelids fluttered but he didn't release his grip on Avila's neck. Avila kneed him twice more, ultimately producing the desired result. Snapper moaned and rolled away. Avila struggled to his feet. He took three steps and slipped. When he got up again, he heard Snapper rising behind him. Frantically Avila bolted for the road.
The rain made it hard to discern the details of the two men ru
The black Jeep was still parked at the Paradise Palms. The trooper decided to sit still and wait.
Avila made it half a mile before he ran out of strength. He stopped on the Tea-Table Bridge and doubled over, sucking air. He tried to flag passing motorists, but none found room in their icy hearts for a bedraggled, saliva-flecked, blood-spattered hitchhiker. Avila was further dejected to see, framed in the window of a speeding Airstream, a freckle-faced teenaged girl, snapping his photograph.
What a sick world, he thought, when an injured human being becomes a roadside amusement.
Meanwhile, out of the veil of rain came Snapper. He was shambling like a zombie across the bridge. For a weapon he'd selected a rusty axle from an abandoned Jet Ski trailer.
Avila raised both arms in supplication. "Let's forget the whole thing, OK?"
"Don't move." Snapper gripped the axle at one end and brought it high over his head, like a sledgehammer.
With a morose peep, Avila hurled himself sideways off the bridge. The drop was only fourteen feet, but given his dread of heights, it might as well have been fourteen stories. Avila was mildly amazed to survive the impact.
The water was warm and the tide was strong. He let it carry him out the cha