Suddenly a great turmoil erupted around the truck, and the man named Angel gave out a scream that didn't sound anything like a little dog. The scream made Joe Winder raise his head off the fender and open what was left of his eyelids.
Through misty slits he saw the husky no-neck goon running toward the bridge. Running away as fast as he could.
Where was Angel?
Something lifted Joe Winder off the truck and laid him on the gravel. He struggled to focus on the face. Face? Naw, had to be a mask. A silvery beard of biblical proportions. Mismatched eyes: one as green as mountain pines, the other brown and dead. Above that, a halo of pink flowers. Weird. The mask leaned closer and whispered in Joe Winder's ear.
The words tumbled around like dice in his brainpan. Made no damn sense. The stranger bent down and said it again.
"I'll get the other one later."
Joe Winder tried to speak but all that came out was a gulping noise. He heard a car coming down the old road and turned his head to see. Soon he became mesmerized by the twin beams of yellow light, growing larger and larger; lasers shooting out of the mangroves. Or was it a spaceship?
When Winder turned back, he was alone. The man who had saved his life was gone.
The car went by in a rush of noise. Joe Winder watched the taillights vanish over the crest of the bridge. It was an hour before he could get to his feet, another twenty minutes before he could make them move in any sensible way.
As he staggered along the pavement, he counted the cars to keep his mind off the pain. Seven sped past without stopping to help. Winder was thinking, Maybe I feel worse than I look. Maybe the blood doesn't show up so well in the dark. Two or three drivers actually touched the brakes. One honked and hurled a Heineken bottle at him.
The eighth car went by doing seventy at least, heading eastbound to the island. Joe Winder saw the brake lights wink and heard the tires squeal. Slowly the car backed up. The door on the passenger side swung open.
A voice said: "My God, are you all right?"
"Not really," said Joe Winder. Half-blind, he was trying to fit himself into the car when he encountered something large and fuzzy on the upholstery.
It was an animal head. He hoped it was not real.
Carrie Lanier picked it up by the snout and tossed it into the back seat. She took Joe Winder's elbow and helped him sit down. Reaching across his lap, she slammed the car door and locked it. "I can't believe this," she said, and stepped on the accelerator.
To Joe Winder it felt as if they were going five hundred miles an hour, straight for the ocean.
Carrie Lanier kept glancing over at him, probably to make sure he was still breathing. After a while she said, "I'm sorry, what was your name again?"
"Joe. Joe Winder."
"Joe, I can't believe they did this to you."
Winder raised his head. "Who?" he said. "Who did this to me?"
NINE
Carrie Lanier pulled off Joe Winder's shoes and said, "You want me to call your girlfriend?"
Winder said no, don't bother. "She'll be home in a couple hours."
"What does she do? What kind of work?"
"She talks dirty," said Joe Winder, "on the phone."
Carrie sat on the edge of the bed. She put a hand on his forehead and felt for fever.
He said, "Thanks for cleaning me up."
"It's all right. You want more ginger ale?"
"No, but there's some Darvocets in the medicine cabinet."
"I think Advils will do just fine."
Winder grunted unhappily. "Look at me. You ever see a face like this on an Advil commercial?"
She brought him one lousy Darvocet and he swallowed it dry. He felt worse than he could remember ever feeling, and it wasn't only the pain. It was anger, too.
"So who beat me up?" he said.
"I don't know," said Carrie Lanier. "I imagine it was somebody from the park. I imagine you stuck your nose where it doesn't belong."
"I didn't," Joe Winder said, "not yet."
He felt her rise from the bed, and soon heard her moving around the apartment. He called her name and she came back to the bedroom, sitting in the same indentation on the mattress.
"I was looking for something to bandage those ribs."
"That's okay," said Winder. "It only hurts when I breathe."
Carrie said, "Maybe I don't need to tell you this, but the Amazing Kingdom is not what it seems. It's not fun and games, there's a ton of money at stake."
"You mean it's a scam?"
"Hey, everything's a scam when you get down to it." Her voice softened. "All I'm saying is, stick to your job. I know it's boring as hell, but stick to it anyway. You shouldn't go poking around."
Joe Winder said, "My poking days are over."
"Then what were you doing out there tonight?"
"Meeting someone at the bridge. What about you?"
"I had a free-lance gig," Carrie said. "A birthday party up in South Miami. Mummy and Daddy wanted Junior to meet Robbie Raccoon in person. What the heck, it was an easy five hundred. And you should've seen the house. Or should I say mansion."
Floating, Joe Winder said: "What do you have to do at these parties?"
"Dance with the kiddies. Waggle my coon tail. Juggle marshmallows, whatever. And pose for pictures, of course. Everybody wants a picture."
She touched his brow again. "You're still hot. Maybe I ought to call your girlfriend at work."
"Don't do that," said Joe Winder, "please." He didn't want Carrie to hook up with Miriam by accident. Miriam and her hot-tub "blow-jobs."
"This is important," he said. "Did you see anyone else on the road out there? Like maybe a circus-type person."
"You're not well," said Carrie Lanier.
"No, I mean it. Big guy with a beard. Flowers on his head." It sounded so ridiculous, maybe he'd hallucinated the whole thing.
"That's not a circus person you're describing. That's Jesus. Or maybe Jerry Garcia."
"Whatever," Joe Winder said. "Did you see anybody on the road? That's all I'm asking."
"Nope," Carrie said. "I really ought to be on my way. What'd you decide about calling the cops?"
"Not a good idea," said Winder. "Especially with Dr. Koocher still missing. Maybe the bad guys'll call back."
"The creeps who did this to you?" Carrie sounded incredulous. "I don't think so, Joe."
She didn't say anything for several moments. Joe Winder tried to read her expression but she had turned away.
"How much does she make, your girlfriend, talking sexy on the phone?"
"Not much. Two hundred a week, sometimes two fifty. They get a bonus for selling videos. And panties, too. Twenty bucks a pair. They buy 'em wholesale from Zayre's."
"Two fifty, that stinks," said Carrie Lanier. "But, hey, I've been there. You do what you have to."
"Nina's got no complaints," said Joe Winder. "She says there's a creative component to every job; the trick is finding it."
Carrie turned around, glowing. "She's absolutely right, your girlfriend is. You know what I did before I got my SAG card? I worked in a cough-drop factory. Wrapping the lozenges in foil, one at a time. The only way I kept from going crazy each cough drop, I'd make a point to wrap it differently from the others. One I'd do in squares, the next I'd do in a triangle, the one after that I'd fold into a rhombus or something. Believe me, it got to be a challenge, especially at thirty lozenges per minute. That was our quota, or else we got docked."
Joe Winder said the first dumb thing that popped into his brain. "I wonder if Nina has a quota."
"She sounds like she's doing just fine," Carrie said. "Listen, Joe, I think you ought to know. There's a rumor going around about the rat doctor. Supposedly they found a note."
"Yeah?"
"You know what kind of note I mean. The bad kind. Good-bye, cruel world, and all that. Supposedly they found it in his desk at the lab."
Joe Winder said, "What exactly did it say, this supposed note?"
"I don't know all the details." Carrie Lanier stood up to go. "Get some rest. It's just a rumor."
"Give me another pill, and sit down for a second."