Stormy Weather

"Between Max and me."

"Oh no." Bo

"What'd he do, sweetie?"

"Nothing, Mom. It's all me."

"Did you have a fight?" her mother asked.

"Listen, I've met two unusual men. I believe I've fallen in love with one of them."

"On your honeymoon, Bo

"I'm afraid so."

"What does he do?"

"He's not certain," Bo

"These men, are they dangerous?"

"Not to me. Mom, they're totally different from anyone I've ever known. It's a very ... primitive charisma."

"Let's not mention that last part to your father."

Next Bo

"Max left a message on the machine." She didn't look at Augustine when she said it. Couldn't look at him.

Bo

"It's over regardless," Skink said.

"Please."

"Call back and leave your own message." The governor gave her the details-the place, the time, who would be there.

After Bo

They made the 905 turnoff in the nick of time. Already the northbound traffic was stacked past Lake Surprise; Skink surmised that the police had raised the Jewfish Creek drawbridge for their roadblock. He predicted they'd set up another one at Card Sound, as soon as more patrol cars arrived from the mainland.

Edie Marsh said, "So where are we going?"

"Patience."

The two of them sat together in the back seat. On the governor's lap was a Bill Blass suitcase, removed from the Cadillac's trunk to make space for the blacked out Snapper.

Skink said, "Driver, dome light! Por favor." Augustine began pushing dashboard buttons until the ceiling lights came on. Skink broke the locks off the suitcase and opened it.

"What have we here!" he said.

The troopers waited all night at Jewfish Creek. As Jim Tile predicted the black Jeep Cherokee never appeared, nor did the silver Cadillac stolen from a customer at a Key Largo convenience store. The French victim had dryly described the armed carjacker as "a poster boy for TMJ."

At daybreak the cops gave up the roadblock and fa

As it turned out, there was no danger whatsoever.

Most newly married men, faced with unexpected desertion, would have been manic with grief, jealousy and anger. Max Lamb, however, was blessed by a hearty, blinding preoccupation with his career.

A nettlesome thought kept scrolling across his mind, and it had nothing to do with his runaway wife. It was something the nutty kidnapper had told him: You need a legacy.

They'd been riding in the back of a U-Haul truck, discussing unforgettable advertising slogans. Max hadn't anything zippy to brag about except the short-lived Plum Crunchies ditty. Since the failure of the cereal campaign, the sixth floor had deployed him more often for billboard concepts and print graphics, and not as much on the verbally creative side.

Which stung, because Max considered himself a genuinely glib and talented wordsmith. He believed it was well within his reach to write an advertising catchphrase that would embed itself in the national lexicon-one of those classics the kidnapper had mentioned. A legacy, if you will.

Now that Bronco cigarets were history, Max was left to review the potential of his other accounts. The hypercarbonated soda served on the plane to Miami put him in mind of Old Faithful Root Beer. Old Faithful's popularity had peaked in the summer of 1962, and since then its share of the global soft-drink market had fizzled to a microscopic sliver. Rodale's mission was to revive Old Faithful in the consciousness of the consumer, and to that end the eccentric Mormon family that owned the company was willing to spend a respectable seven-figure sum.

Around Rodale & Burns, the Old Faithful Root Beer account was regarded as a lucrative but hopeless loser. Nobody liked the stuff because one sixteen-ounce bottle induced thunderous belching that often lasted for days. At a party, Pete Archibald drunkenly offered a joke slogan: "The root beer you'll never forget-because it won't let you!"

Lying there alone in Augustine's house, Max Lamb savored the prospect of single-handedly resuscitating Old Faithful. It was the sort of coup that could make him a legend on Madison Avenue. For inspiration he turned on the Home Shopping Network. Into the wee hours he tinkered determinedly with beverage-related alliterations, allusions, puns, verses and metaphors. Bo

Eventually Max struck on a wi

Max Lamb was so excited he couldn't sleep. Once more he tried calling the apartment in New York. No Bo

Bo

He wasn't surprised by the symptoms. The downside of seeing his wife would be seeing the deranged kidnapper again. Only an idiot wouldn't be scared shitless.