"Yeah?" Edie said. "With bullet holes in the roof?" She could see a bud of mushroomed steel above the passenger side.
"Jesus." Snapper used the barrel of the .357 to adjust the rearview mirror. "Jesus, you sure?"
The Cherokee was still on their bumper. Bonnie noticed the governor wore a faint smile. Edie picked up on it, too. She said, "What's going on? Who's that behind us?"
Skink shrugged. Snapper said: "How 'bout this? I don't care who's back there, because he's already one dead cocksucker. That's 'zackly how many shots I got left."
In what seemed to Bonnie as a single fluid motion, the governor reached across the seat, wrenched the .357 from Snapper's hand and fired it point-blank into the Cadillac's dashboard.
Then he dropped it on Snapper's lap and said: "Now you've got jackshit."
Snapper labored not to pile the car into a utility pole. Edie Marsh's ears rang from the gun blast, although she wasn't surprised by what had happened. It had only been a matter of time. The smiler had been humoring them.
One thought reverberated in Bonnie Lamb's head: What now? What in the world will he do next?
Snapper, straining not to appear frightened, hollering at Skink over his shoulder: "Try anything, anything, I fuckin' swear we're all going off a bridge. You unner-stand? We'll all be dead."
"Eyes on the road, chief."
"Don't touch me, goddammit!"
Skink placed his chin next to the headrest, inches from Snapper's right ear. He said, "That cop you shot, he was a friend of mine."
Edie Marsh's chin dropped. "Tell me it wasn't 'Jim.'"
"It was."
"Naturally." She sighed disconsolately.
"So what?" Snapper said. His shoulders bunched. "Like I'm supposed to know. Fucking cop's a cop."
To Bonnie, the social dynamics inside the carjacked Seville were surreal. Logically the abduction should have ended once Snapper's gun was out of bullets. Yet here they were, riding along as if nothing had changed. They might as well be on a double date. Stop for pizza and milk shakes.
She said: "Can I ask something: Where are we going? Is somebody in charge now?"
Snapper said, "I am, goddammit. Long as I'm drivin'"
He felt Edie jab him in the side. "The Jeep," she said, pointing. "Check it out."
The black truck was in the left lane, keeping speed with the Cadillac. Snapper pressed the accelerator, but the Jeep stayed even.
"Well, shit," he grumbled. Edie was right. It was the same truck they'd abandoned ten minutes earlier. Snapper was totally baffled. Who could it be?
They watched the Cherokee's front passenger window roll down. The ghost driver steered with his left hand. His eyes were locked on the highway. In the oncoming headlights Snapper caught sight of the man's face, which he didn't recognize. He did, however, note that the stranger definitely wasn't wearing a Highway Patrol uniform. The observation gave Snapper an utterly misplaced sense of relief.
Bonnie Lamb recognized the other driver immediately. She gave a clandestine wave. So did the governor.
"What's going on!" Edie Marsh was on her knees, pointing and shouting. "What's going on! Who is that sonofabitch!"
She was more dejected than startled when the Jeep's driver one-handedly raised a rifle. By the time Snapper saw it, he'd already heard the shot.
Pfffttt. Like a kid's airgun.
Then a painful sting under one ear; liquid heat flooding down through his arms, his chest, his legs. He went slack and listed starboard, mumbling, "What the full, what the fuh"
Skink said it was a superb time for Edie to assist at the wheel. "Take it steady," he added. "We're coasting."
Reaching across Snapper's body, she anxiously guided the Seville to the gravel shoulder of the highway. The black Jeep smoothly swung in ahead of them.
Edie bit her lip. "I can't believe this. I just can't."
"Me, neither," said Bonnie Lamb. She was out the door, running toward Augustine, before the car stopped rolling.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Jim Tile once played tight end for the University of Florida. In his junior year, during the final home game of the season, a scrawny Alabama cornerback speared his crimson helmet full tilt into Jim Tile's sternum. Jim Tile held on to the football but completely forgot how to breathe.
That's how he felt now, lying in clammy rainwater, staring up at the worried face of a platinum-haired hooker. The impact of the shot had deflated Jim Tile's lungs, which were screaming silently for air. The emergency lights of the patrol car blinked blue-white-blue in the reflection in the prostitute's eyes.
Jim Tile understood that he couldn't be dying-it only felt that way. The asshole's bullet wasn't lodged in vital bronchial tissue; it was stuck in a layer of blessedly impenetrable Du Pont Kevlar. Like most police officers, Jim Tile detested the vest, particularly in the summer it was hot, bulky, itchy. But he wore it because he'd promised his mother, his nieces, his uncle and of course Brenda, who wore one of her own. Working for the Highway Patrol was statistically the most dangerous job in law enforcement. Naturally it also paid the worst. Only after numerous officers had been gunned down were bulletproof vests requisitioned for the state patrol, whose budget was so threadbare that the purchase was made possible only by soliciting outside donations.
Long before that, Jim Tile's loved ones had decided he shouldn't wait for the state legislature to demonstrate its heartfelt concern for police officers. The Kevlar vest was a family Christmas present. Jim Tile didn't always wear it while patrolling rural parts of the Panhandle, but in Miami he wouldn't go to church without it. He was glad he had strapped it on today.
If only he could remember how to breathe.
"Take it easy, baby," the hooker kept saying. "Take it easy. We called 911."
As Jim Tile sat upright, he emitted a sucking sound that reminded the prostitute of a broken garbage disposal. When she smacked him between the shoulders, a mashed chunk of lead fell from a dime-sized hole in Jim Tile's shirt and plopped into the puddle. He picked it up: the slug from a .357.
Jim Tile asked, "Where'd they go?" His voice was a frail rattle. With difficulty he bolstered his service revolver.
"Don't you move," said the woman.
"Did I hit him?"
"Sit still."
"Ma'am, help me up. Please."
He was shuffling for his car when the fire truck arrived. The paramedics made him lie down while they stripped off his shirt and the vest. They told him he was going to have an extremely nasty bruise. They told him he was a very lucky man.
By the time the paramedics were done, the parking lot of the Paradise Palms was clogged with curious locals, wandering tourists and motel guests, a fleet of Monroe County deputies, two TV news vans and three gleaming, undented Highway Patrol cruisers belonging to Jim Tile's supervisors. They gathered under black umbrellas to fill out their reports.
Meanwhile the shooter was speeding up Highway One with the governor and the newlywed.
A lieutenant told Jim Tile not to worry, they'd never make it out of the Keys.
"Sir, I'd like to be part of the pursuit. I feel fine."
"You're not going anywhere." The lieutenant softened the command with a fraternal chuckle. "Hell, Jimbo, we're just gettin' started."