Stormy Weather (5 page)

Until today, when he started acting like a creep.

The predawn expedition to Miami seemed, at first, a honeymoon lark—Max’s way of showing his bride that he could be as wild and impulsive as her old boyfriends. Against her best instincts, Bonnie played along. She felt sure that seeing the hurricane’s terrible destruction would end Max’s documentary ambitions, that he’d put down the camera and join the volunteer relief workers, who were arriving by the busload.

But he didn’t. He kept taping, becoming more and more excited, until Bonnie Lamb could no longer bear it. When he asked her to operate the camera while he posed on an overturned station wagon, Bonnie nearly slugged him. She quit tagging after Max because she didn’t want to be seen with him. Her own husband.

In one gutted house she spotted an old woman, her mother’s age, stepping through splintered bedroom furniture. The woman was calling the name of a pet kitten, which had disappeared in the storm. Bonnie Lamb offered to help search. The cat didn’t turn up, but Bonnie did find the old woman’s wedding album, beneath a shattered mirror. Bonnie cleared the broken glass and retrieved the album, damp but not ruined. Bonnie opened it to the date of inscription: December 11, 1949. When the old woman saw the album, she broke
down in Bonnie’s arms. With a twinge of shame, Bonnie glanced around to make sure that Max wasn’t secretly filming them. Then she began to cry, too.

Later, resolved to confront her husband, Bonnie Lamb went to find him. If he refused to put away that stupid camera, she would demand the keys to the rental car. It promised to be the first hard test of the new marriage.

Two hours passed with no sign of Max, and Bonnie’s anger dissolved into worry. The tale told by the boy with the broken bicycle ordinarily would have been comical, but Bonnie took it as further evidence of Max’s reckless obsession. He was afraid of animals, even hamsters, a condition he blamed on an unspecified childhood trauma; to boldly pursue a wild monkey was definitely out of character. On the other hand, Max loved that damn Handycam. More than once he’d reminded Bonnie that it had cost seven hundred dollars, mail order from Hong Kong. She could easily envision him chasing a seven-hundred-dollar investment down the street. She could even envision him strangling the monkey for it, if necessary.

Another squall came, and Bonnie cursed mildly under her breath. There wasn’t much left standing, in the way of shelter. She felt a shiver as the raindrops ran down her neck, and decided to return to the rental car and wait for Max there. Except she wasn’t sure where the car was parked—without street signs or mailboxes, every block of the destroyed subdivision looked the same. Bonnie Lamb was lost.

She saw the helicopters wheeling overhead, heard the chorus of sirens in the distance, yet on the streets of the neighborhood there were no policemen, no soldiers, no proper authority to which a missing husband could be reported. Exhausted, Bonnie sat on a curb. To keep dry, she tried to balance a large square of plywood over her head. A gust of wind got under the board and pulled Bonnie over backward; as she went down, a corner of the board struck her sharply on the forehead.

She lay there stunned for several moments, staring at the muddy sky, blinking the raindrops from her eyes. A man appeared, standing over her. He wore a small rifle slung on one shoulder.

“Let me help,” he said.

Bonnie Lamb allowed him to lift her from the wet grass. She noticed her blouse was soaked, and shyly folded her arms across her breasts. The man retrieved the plywood board and braced it at a generous
angle against a concrete utility pole. There he and Bonnie Lamb took shelter from the slashing rain.

The man was in his early thirties, with good shoulders and tanned, strong-looking arms. He had short brown hair, a sharp chin and friendly blue eyes. He wore Rockport hiking shoes, which gave Bonnie a sense of relief. She couldn’t imagine a psychopathic sex killer choosing Rockports.

“Do you live around here?” she asked.

The man shook his head. “Coral Gables.”

“Is the gun loaded?”

“Sort of,” the man said, without elaborating.

“My name is Bonnie.”

“I’m Augustine.”

“What are you doing out here?” she asked.

“Believe it or not,” he said, “I’m looking for my monkeys.”

Bonnie Lamb smiled. “What a coincidence.”

Max Lamb woke up with a headache that was about to get worse. He found himself stripped to his underwear and bound to a pine tree. The tall man with the glass eye, the man who’d snatched him off the street as if he were a wayward toddler, was thrashing and flopping in a leafy clearing by the campfire. When the impressive seizure ended, the kidnapper gathered himself in a lotus position. Max Lamb noticed a thick black collar around the man’s neck. In one hand he held a shiny cylinder that reminded Max of a remote control for a model car. The cylinder had a short rubber antenna and three colored buttons.

The one-eyed man was mumbling: “Too much juice, too much …” He wore a cheap plastic shower cap on his head. Max would have assumed he was a street person, except for the teeth; the kidnapper displayed outstanding orthodontics.

He seemed unaware that his captive was observing him. Deliberately the man extended both legs to brace himself, inhaled twice deeply, then pushed a red button on the remote-control cylinder. Instantly his body began to jerk like an enormous broken puppet. Max Lamb watched helplessly as the stranger writhed through the leaves toward the fire. His boots were in the flames when the fit finally ended. Then the man rose with a startling swiftness, stomping his huge feet until the soles cooled.

One hand went to his neck. “By God, that’s better.”

Max Lamb concluded it was a nightmare, and shut his eyes. When he opened them again, much later, he saw that the campfire was freshly stoked. The one-eyed kidnapper crouched nearby; now his neck was bare. He was feeding Oreo cookies to the larcenous monkey, which appeared to be regaining its health. Max was more certain than ever that what he’d witnessed earlier was a dream. He felt ready to assert himself.

“Where’s my camera?” he demanded.

The kidnapper stood up, laughing through his wild beard. “Perfect,” he said. “‘Where’s my camera?’ That’s just perfect.”

In a hazardously patronizing tone, Max Lamb said: “Let me go, pardner. You don’t
really
want to go to jail, do you?”

“Ha,” the stranger said. He reached for the shiny black cylinder.

A bolt of fire passed through Max Lamb’s neck. He shuddered violently and gulped for breath. His tongue tasted of hot copper. Crimson spears of light punctured the night. Max warbled in fear.

“Shock collar,” the kidnapper explained, unnecessarily. “The Tri-Tronics 200. Three levels of stimulation. Range of one mile. Rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries. Three-year warranty.”

Max felt it now, stiff leather against the soft skin of his throat.

“State of the art,” said the stranger. “You a bird hunter?”

Max mouthed the word “no.”

“Well, trust me. Field trainers swear by these gizmos. Dogs get the message real quick, even Labs.” The stranger twirled the remote control like a baton. “Me, I couldn’t put one of these on an animal. Fact, I couldn’t even try it on
you
without testing it myself. That’s what a big old softy I am.”

The kidnapper scratched the crown of the monkey’s head. The monkey hopped back and bared its tiny teeth, which were flecked black with Oreo crumbs. The kidnapper laughed.

Max Lamb, quavering: “Keep it away from me!”

“Not an animal person, huh?”

“What is it you want?”

The stranger turned toward the fire.

Max said, “Is it money? Just take whatever I’ve got.”

“Jesus, you’re thick.” The stranger pushed the red button, and Max Lamb thrashed briefly against his ropes. The monkey skittered away, out of the firelight.

Max looked up to see the psycho, taping him with the video camera! “Say cheese,” the stranger said, aiming the Handycam with his good eye.

Max Lamb reddened. He felt spindly and pale in his underwear.

The man said, “I might send this up to Rodale and Burns. What d’you think—for the office Christmas bash? ‘How I Spent My Florida Vacation,’ starring Max Leo Lamb.”

Max sagged. Rodale & Burns was the Madison Avenue advertising agency where he worked. The lunatic had been through his billfold.

“They call me Skink,” the kidnapper said. He turned off the Handycam and carefully capped the lens. “But I prefer ‘captain.’”

“Captain what?”

“Obviously you were impressed by the hurricane.” The stranger packed the video camera in a canvas sleeve. “Myself, I was disappointed. I was hoping for something more … well, biblical.”

Max Lamb said, as respectfully as possible: “It looked pretty bad to me.”

“You hungry?” The kidnapper brought a burlap sack to the tree where his prisoner was tied.

“Oh God,” said Max Lamb, staring inside the bag. “You can’t be serious.”

Filling the BarcaLounger like a stuffed tuna, Tony Torres encouraged Edie Marsh and Snapper to reveal the details of their aborted scam. Facing a loaded shotgun, they complied.

Snapper gestured sourly toward Edie, who said: “Simple. I fake a fall in your driveway. My ‘brother’ here threatens to sue. You freak out and offer us money.”

“Because you guys know,” Tony said, slapping a mosquito on his blubbery neck, “I’ll be getting quite a wad of dough on account of the hurricane. Insurance dough.”

“Exactly,” Edie Marsh said. “Your place is wrecked, last thing you need is a lawsuit. So Snapper says here’s an idea: Soon as your hurricane money comes in, cut us a piece and we call it even.”

Tony Torres sucked his teeth in amusement. “How big a piece, darling?”

“Whatever we could take you for.”

“Ah,” said Tony.

“We figured you’d just factor us in the insurance claim. Jack up your losses by a few grand, who’d ever know?”

“Beautiful,” Tony said.

“Oh yeah,” said Snapper, “fucking genius. Look how good it worked.”

He and Edie sat with their backs to the living-room wall; Snapper with his long legs drawn up, Edie’s straight out, kneecaps pressed together. A picture of innocence, Tony Torres thought. The runs in her stockings were a nifty touch.

The carpet was sodden from the storm, but Edie Marsh didn’t complain. Snapper felt the wetness creeping through the seat of his dress trousers—the annoyance was sufficient that he might kill Tony Torres, if the opportunity presented itself.

Deep in thought, the salesman slurped at a sweaty bottle of imported beer. He’d offered his captives a quart of warm Gatorade, which they’d refused without comment. A humid breeze blew through the fractures in the walls and rocked the bare sixty-watt bulb on its beam. Edie Marsh tilted her head and saw a spray of stars where Tony’s ceiling had once been. The noise from the portable generator gave Snapper an oppressive headache.

Eventually, Tony Torres said: “You understand there’s no law to speak of. The world’s upside down, for the time being.”

“You could kill us and get clean away with it. That’s what you mean,” Snapper said.

Edie looked at him. “You’re a tremendous help.”

Tony indicated that he preferred not to shoot them. “But here’s my thinking,” he said. “Tomorrow, maybe the day after, somebody from Midwest Casualty will come see about the house. I expect he’ll say it’s a total loss, unless he’s blind as a bat. Anyway, the good news: I happen to own the place free and clear. Paid it off last March.” Tony paused to stifle a burp. “I was having a good run at the office, so what the hell. I paid the mortgage off.”

Edie Marsh said: “Salesman of the Year.” She had noticed the plaque.

“Mister,” Snapper interjected, “you got somethin’ I can put under my ass? The rug’s all wet. A newspaper maybe?”

“Oh, I think you’ll live,” said the salesman. “Anyhow, since the bank don’t own the house, all the insurance comes to me. As I say, there’s the good news. The bad news is, half belongs to my wife. Her name’s on the deed.”

Snapper asked where she was. Tony Torres said she’d run off three months ago with a parapsychology professor from the university. He said they’d gotten into crystal healing and moved to Eugene, Oregon.

“In a VW van!” he scoffed. “But she’ll be back for her cut. Of that there’s no doubt. Neria will return. See where I’m headed?”

“Yeah,” said Snapper. “You want us to kill your wife.”

“Jesus, what a one-track mind you got. No, I don’t want you to
kill
my wife.” The salesman appealed to Edie Marsh. “You get it, don’t you? Before they cut a check, the insurance company is gonna need both signatures. Me and the missus. And I also believe the adjuster might want to chat face-to-face. What’d you say your name was?”

“Edie.”

“OK, Edie, you wanna be an actress here’s your chance. When the man from Midwest Casualty shows up, you be Neria Torres. My loving wife.” Tony smirked at the notion. “Well?”

Edie Marsh asked what was in it for her, and Tony Torres said ten grand. Edie said she’d have to think about it, which took about one one-hundredth of a second. She needed money.

“What about me?” Snapper asked.

Tony said, “I always wanted a bodyguard.”

Snapper grunted skeptically. “How much?”

“Ten for you, too. It’s more than fair.”

Snapper admitted it was. “Why,” he asked, with a trace of scorn, “do
you
need a bodyguard?”

“Some customers got really pissed off at me. It’s a long boring story.”

Edie Marsh said, “How pissed off?”

“I don’t intend to find out,” said Tony Torres. “Once I get the check, I’m gone.”

“Where?”

“None a your damn business.”

Middle America was what Tony had in mind. A handsome two-story house with a porch and a fireplace, on three-quarters of an acre outside Tulsa. What appealed to Tony about Middle America was the absence of hurricanes. There were tornadoes galore, but nobody expected any man-made structure (least of all, a trailer home) to withstand the terrible force of a tornado. Nobody would blame a person if the double-wides he sold blew to pieces, because that was the celestial nature of tornadoes. Tony Torres figured he would be safe from disgruntled customers in Tulsa.