agent had warned them. Death Wish Tours, he’d called it.
Only a fool would set foot south of Orlando
.
Crazy Max, thought Bonnie. What had possessed him?
“You know why my husband came down here?” she said. “Know what he was doing when he got lost? Taking video of the wrecked houses. And the people, too.”
“Why?” Augustine asked.
“Home movies. To show his pals back North.”
“Jesus, that’s—”
“Sick,” Bonnie Lamb said. “‘Sick’ is the word for it.”
Augustine said nothing more. Slowly he worked his way toward the Turnpike. The futility of the monkey hunt was evident; Augustine realized that most of his dead uncle’s wild animals were irretrievable. The larger mammals would inevitably make their presence known—the Cape buffalo, the bears, the cougars—and the results were bound to be unfortunate. Meanwhile the snakes and crocodiles probably were celebrating freedom by copulating merrily in the Everglades, ensuring for their species a solid foothold in a new tropical habitat. Augustine felt it was morally wrong to interfere. An escaped cobra had as much natural right to a life in Florida as did all those retired garment workers from Queens. Natural selection would occur. The test applied to Max Lamb as well, but Augustine felt sorry for his wife. He would set aside his principles and help find her missing husband.
He drove using the high beams because there were no street lights, and the roads were a littered gauntlet of broken trees and utility poles, heaps of lumber and twisted metal, battered appliances and gutted sofas. They saw a Barbie dollhouse and a canopy bed and an antique china cabinet and a child’s wheelchair and a typewriter and a tangle of golf clubs and a cedar hot tub, split in half like a coconut husk—Bonnie said it was as if a great supernatural fist had snatched up a hundred thousand lives and shaken the contents all over creation.
Augustine was thinking more in terms of a B-52 raid.
“Is this your first one?” Bonnie asked.
“Technically, no.” He braked to swerve around a dead cow, bloated on the center line. “I was conceived during Donna—least that’s what my mother said. A hurricane baby. That was 1960. Betsy I can barely remember because I was only five. We lost a few lime trees, but the house held up fine.”
Bonnie said, “That’s kind of romantic. Being conceived in the middle of a hurricane.”
“My mother said it made perfect sense, considering how I turned out.”
“And how
did
you turn out?” Bonnie asked.
“Reports differ.”
Augustine edged the truck into a line of storm traffic crawling up the northbound ramp to the Turnpike. A rusty Ford with a crooked Georgia license plate cut them off. The car was packed with itinerant construction workers who’d been on the road for several days straight, apparently drinking the whole time. The driver, a shaggy blond with greenish teeth, leered and yelled an obscenity up at Bonnie Lamb. With one hand Augustine reached behind his seat and got the small rifle. Bracing it against the doorpost, he fired a tranquilizer dart cleanly into the belly of the redneck driver, who yipped and pitched sideways into the lap of one of his pals.
“Manners,” said Augustine. He gunned the truck, nudging the stalled Ford off the pavement.
Bonnie Lamb thought: God, what am I doing?
They broke camp at midnight—Max Lamb, the rhesus monkey and the man who called himself Skink. Max was grateful that the man had allowed him to put on his shoes, because they walked for hours inpitch darkness through deep swamp and spiny thickets. Max’s bare legs stung from the scratches and itched from the bug bites. He was terribly hungry but didn’t complain, knowing the man had saved him the rump of the dead raccoon that was boiled for dinner. Max wanted no part of it.
They came to a canal. Skink untied Max’s hands, unbuckled the shock collar and ordered him to swim. Max was halfway across when he saw the blue-black
Only a fool would set foot south of Orlando
.
Crazy Max, thought Bonnie. What had possessed him?
“You know why my husband came down here?” she said. “Know what he was doing when he got lost? Taking video of the wrecked houses. And the people, too.”
“Why?” Augustine asked.
“Home movies. To show his pals back North.”
“Jesus, that’s—”
“Sick,” Bonnie Lamb said. “‘Sick’ is the word for it.”
Augustine said nothing more. Slowly he worked his way toward the Turnpike. The futility of the monkey hunt was evident; Augustine realized that most of his dead uncle’s wild animals were irretrievable. The larger mammals would inevitably make their presence known—the Cape buffalo, the bears, the cougars—and the results were bound to be unfortunate. Meanwhile the snakes and crocodiles probably were celebrating freedom by copulating merrily in the Everglades, ensuring for their species a solid foothold in a new tropical habitat. Augustine felt it was morally wrong to interfere. An escaped cobra had as much natural right to a life in Florida as did all those retired garment workers from Queens. Natural selection would occur. The test applied to Max Lamb as well, but Augustine felt sorry for his wife. He would set aside his principles and help find her missing husband.
He drove using the high beams because there were no street lights, and the roads were a littered gauntlet of broken trees and utility poles, heaps of lumber and twisted metal, battered appliances and gutted sofas. They saw a Barbie dollhouse and a canopy bed and an antique china cabinet and a child’s wheelchair and a typewriter and a tangle of golf clubs and a cedar hot tub, split in half like a coconut husk—Bonnie said it was as if a great supernatural fist had snatched up a hundred thousand lives and shaken the contents all over creation.
Augustine was thinking more in terms of a B-52 raid.
“Is this your first one?” Bonnie asked.
“Technically, no.” He braked to swerve around a dead cow, bloated on the center line. “I was conceived during Donna—least that’s what my mother said. A hurricane baby. That was 1960. Betsy I can barely remember because I was only five. We lost a few lime trees, but the house held up fine.”
Bonnie said, “That’s kind of romantic. Being conceived in the middle of a hurricane.”
“My mother said it made perfect sense, considering how I turned out.”
“And how
did
you turn out?” Bonnie asked.
“Reports differ.”
Augustine edged the truck into a line of storm traffic crawling up the northbound ramp to the Turnpike. A rusty Ford with a crooked Georgia license plate cut them off. The car was packed with itinerant construction workers who’d been on the road for several days straight, apparently drinking the whole time. The driver, a shaggy blond with greenish teeth, leered and yelled an obscenity up at Bonnie Lamb. With one hand Augustine reached behind his seat and got the small rifle. Bracing it against the doorpost, he fired a tranquilizer dart cleanly into the belly of the redneck driver, who yipped and pitched sideways into the lap of one of his pals.
“Manners,” said Augustine. He gunned the truck, nudging the stalled Ford off the pavement.
Bonnie Lamb thought: God, what am I doing?
They broke camp at midnight—Max Lamb, the rhesus monkey and the man who called himself Skink. Max was grateful that the man had allowed him to put on his shoes, because they walked for hours inpitch darkness through deep swamp and spiny thickets. Max’s bare legs stung from the scratches and itched from the bug bites. He was terribly hungry but didn’t complain, knowing the man had saved him the rump of the dead raccoon that was boiled for dinner. Max wanted no part of it.
They came to a canal. Skink untied Max’s hands, unbuckled the shock collar and ordered him to swim. Max was halfway across when he saw the blue-black
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