In his eyes I expected to see hate or at least disappointment, but I was wrong. Van was looking at me the same way he had that morning we met by the grapefruit tree in front of the Elks Lodge; the same way he looked at me that night in the cab of his truck as he unbuttoned my Lilly Pulitzer blouse. The harder I tried to vanquish these moments from my mind, the more vivid and arousing they became.
Then I made a foolish mistake. I looked at his hands, those incredibly strong and knowing hands. His fingernails had been scrubbed for the trial, but the scars were still visible-those mysterious pale marks on his knuckles. They would never wash away, nor would my memories of the wondrous ways his hands had touched me during our many nights together. When I looked up I saw Van smiling fondly, and I knew he was thinking the same thing. My eyes brimmed with tears, so quickly I turned to the judge and begged for a recess…
Boyd Shreave tore the page from Eugenie Fonda’s memoir and, with a contemptuous flourish, wiped his ass with it.
Had he screwed up the courage to confront Genie, she would’ve willingly informed him that the best-selling account of her affair with the notorious wife killer had been ludicrously exaggerated to juice up the sales, and that Van Bonneville had turned in an unskilled and utterly forgettable performance the one and only time they’d had sex. Clueless as usual, Shreave believed-and suffered over-every salacious sentence in the book.
“Boyd!” It was Honey shouting.
“I’m not done!”
“Boyd, hurry!”
“Leave me alone, for Christ’s sake.”
“Please! I need you!” Then she screamed.
Awkwardly he shuffled out of the trees and was instantly poleaxed by the stench of dead fish. Beneath the poinciana stood Honey with a rope cinched tightly around her neck, possibly the same rope she’d used on him. He was about to say something snarky when he noticed movement behind her.
It was a man. The end of the rope was tied around his chest and secured with a substantial knot. One hand was wrapped in dirty bandages and the other hand hefted a branch of gumbo-limbo.
“Can I help you, fuckwad?” the intruder asked.
It was the same voice that had hissed at Shreave from the shadows in the dead of night.
“Boyd, for God’s sake,” Honey said. “Do something.”
Shreave blinked.
The stranger peered. “Darlin’, who is this noodle dick?”
Humiliated, Shreave looked down at what was left of himself after a shriveling by cold fear. He was too petrified to pull up his pants.
“Boyd, he doesn’t have a gun or even a knife. All he’s got is a stupid stick!” Honey winced as the man twisted the rope.
She was right. There was no good reason for any young able-bodied man to stand by and let her be hauled off by some teetering, drool-flecked deviant. Obviously he was in sorry shape. His swollen face had a greenish tint, his shrunken eyes were bloodshot and he carried himself stiffly, as if riven with pain. To further advertise his sickliness, he was gnawing like a starved squirrel on a capped pill bottle.
“Boyd, please,” Honey implored. “For once in your life.”
“Wh-what?” Shreave thinking: You’re a tough broad. You can take this loser. “What d-do you expect m-me to do?”
“Come on! You outweigh him by forty fucking pounds!”
That was undeniably true. All he had to do was sit on the guy, and Honey could free herself. Still, Shreave didn’t move.
The foul-smelling stalker seemed richly entertained by the standoff-Honey shouting at Boyd, and Boyd standing there half-naked, cupping his privates.
“You’re bettin’ on the wrong rooster,” Louis Piejack said to Honey. “Come on now, angel. Let’s go make us some magic.”
With a stained and lopsided grin, he yanked roughly on the rope. Honey let out a small cry as she was led away from the campsite and, ever so slowly, up the slope of the oyster midden.
And Boyd Silvester Shreave-mouth open, eyes dull, respiration shallow-stood with his Tommy Bahama boat shorts bunched around his bug-bitten ankles, doing what he did best.
Absolutely nothing.
Twenty-one
Louis Piejack had deteriorated in all aspects during the long night in the cistern. Grime-borne infection had erupted beneath his cheek-to-shin stubble of cactus needles, promoting a startling dermatological resemblance to a puffer fish. Meanwhile his moldy surgical bandages had been fully colonized by fire ants, creating a live insect hive on the terminus of his left arm. Protruding from the putrid gauze were Piejack’s skewed finger nubs, which had plumped and ripened into a parody of Greek olives. A medley of extreme pain stimuli-stinging, searing, throbbing, burning, grinding-was being transmitted in hot static bursts to Piejack’s brain stem, yet he remained benumbed by the derangement of lust.
“Jackpot! Jackpot!” he chirped at Honey Santana as he exultantly led her across the island.
“Louis, you’re hurting me.”
“Then be good.”
“The rope’s cutting into my neck.”
“Don’t worry, angel. I’ll kiss it and make it better.”
“What is it you want?” Honey asked, as if she didn’t know. The man looked quite ill, and she aimed to overpower him at the earliest opportunity.
“What do you think I want?” Piejack waggled the pill bottle in his lips like the stub of a cigar.
“There are easier ways to get laid, Louis. Call an escort service, for heaven’s sake.”
He sneered. “Ever seen them girls? Oinky oink oink!”
“Really,” Honey said. “And when’s the last time you were mistaken for Sean Connery?”
“Who?”
“You know. The old James Bond.”
Piejack grunted. “So you’re makin’ a goddamn joke.”
“No, I’m making a point. Think about what you’re doing, Louis. You rape me, they’ll lock you up for twenty years.”
“Who says it’s gonna be a rape?”
“I do.” Honey yanked on the rope, halting him in his tracks.
Piejack spun around. “So, how come it’s gotta be that way? Why?” His eyes were twitching. “I know you want me-that’s how come you stopped over my house. So why don’tcha just roll with it?”
Honey longed to say: Because you’re a loathsome lump of shit, Louis, and I’d rather die than let you touch me…
But Piejack still toted the gumbo-limbo branch, so Honey’s reponse was: “Because I don’t sleep with men who treat me like this, that’s why.”
“Treat you how?”
“Like a dog, Louis. You’re dragging me along like a hound dog on a leash. Is this supposed to put me in a romantic mood?”
Piejack clicked his teeth. “You’re just tryin’ to con me into takin’ off the rope. Here”-he spit the pharmacy bottle at her feet-“Twist the cap off that sucker, would ya?”
Honey picked up the bottle, glanced at the label and opened it. “How many?” she asked.
“Three would be nice. Four would be scrumptious.”
She tapped the Vicodins into her palm. “Where you want ’em?”
Piejack opened his jaws and unfurled his tongue, which resembled a scabrous brown sea slug.
“Put that nasty thing away,” Honey told him. “Open wide.”
Predictably, he slurped at her fingers as she dropped the pills into his mouth. She was too quick for him.
He swallowed the painkillers dry. “How many do I got left?”
“Just one, Louis.”
“That’s okay. My man at the drugstore owes me a refill.”
“So we’re going home soon?” Honey asked.
“Yes, ma’am. The johnboat can’t be far.”
“Can we bring my kayaks?”
Not wishing to abandon her expensive purchases, Honey had no qualms about asking Piejack for a tow. She figured it was the least he could do after abducting her.
“Don’t see why not,” he said, resuming the march. “But ’member, one good deed deserves an even better one. That means you gotta give up the velvet, angel.”