Part 39 (2/2)
”I know who you are,” the agent said. It felt as if a giant wasp were boring into his thigh. Billy Hawkins unbuckled his trousers and grimaced at the sight of his Jockey shorts soaked crimson.
”You a.s.sholes are going to jail,” he said, pinching the pale flesh around the bullet wound.
”We're just burglars,” said Danny Pogue.
”Not anymore.” Hawkins attempted to rise to his feet, but Bud Schwartz wiggled the gun and told him to stay where he was. The agent's forehead was sprinkled with sweat, and his lips were gray. ”Hey, Bud,” he said, ”I've seen your jacket, and this isn't your style. a.s.sault on a federal officer, man, you're looking at Atlanta.”
Bud Schwartz was deeply depressed to hear the FBI man call him by name. ”You don't know s.h.i.+t about me,” he snapped.
”Suppose you tell me what the h.e.l.l's going on out here. What's your beef with Frankie King?”
Bud Schwartz said, ”I don't know who you're talkin” about.”
Miraculously, Danny Pogue caught on before saying something disastrous. He flashed a checkerboard grin and said, ”Yeah, who's Frankie King? We never heard a no Frankie King.”
”Bulls.h.i.+t,” Agent Billy Hawkins growled. ”Go ahead and play it stupid. You're all going to prison, anyhow. You and that crazy old lady?”
”If it makes you feel any better,” said Danny Pogue, ”she shot us, too.”
The campsite was...gone.
”I'm not surprised,” Joe Winder said. He took Carrie's hand and kept walking. A light rain was falling, and the woods smelled cool.
Carrie asked, ”What do we do if he's really gone?”
”I don't know.”
Ten minutes later she asked if they were lost.
”I got turned around,” Winder admitted. ”It can't be too far.”
”Joe, where are we going?”
The rain came down harder, and the sky blackened. From the west came a roll of thunder that shook the leaves. The birds fell silent; then the wind began to race across the island, and Joe Winder could taste the storm. He dropped Carrie's hand and started to jog, slapping out a trail with his arms. He called over his shoulder, urging Carrie to keep up.
It took fifteen more minutes to find the junkyard where the ancient Plymouth station wagon sat on rusty b.u.mpers. The yellow beach umbrellaa”still stuck in the dashboarda”fluttered furiously in the gale.
Joe Winder pulled Carrie inside the car, and hugged her so tightly she let out a cry. ”My arms are tingling,” she said. ”The little hairs on my arms.”
He covered her ears. ”Hold on, it's lightning.”
It struck with a white flash and a deafening rip. Twenty yards away, a dead mahogany tree split up the middle and dropped a huge leafless branch. ”G.o.d,” Carrie whispered. ”That was close.”
Raindrops hammered on the roof. Joe Winder turned around in the seat and looked in the back of the car. ”They're gone,” he said.
”What, Joe?”
”The books. This is where he kept all his books.”
She turned to see. Except for several dead roaches and a yellowed copy of the New Republic, the station wagon had been cleaned out.
Winder was vexed. ”I don't know how he did it. You should've seena”there were hundreds in here. Steinbeck, Hemingway. Jesus, Carrie, he had Garcia Marquez in Spanish. First editions! Some of the greatest books ever written.”
”Then he's actually gone.”
”It would appear to be so.”
”Think we should call somebody?”
”What?”
”Somebody up in New York,” Carrie said, ”at the prison. I mean, just in case.”
”Let me think about this.”
”I can't believe he'd try it.”
The thunderstorm moved quickly over the island and out to sea. Soon the lightning stopped and the downpour softened to a drizzle. Carrie said, ”The breeze felt nice, didn't it?”
Joe Winder wasn't listening. He was trying to decide if they should keep looking or not. Without Skink, new choices lay ahead: bold and serious decisions. Winder suddenly felt responsible for the entire operation.
Carrie turned to kiss him and her knee hit the glove compartment, which popped open. Curiously she poked through the contentsa”a flashtight, a tire gauge, three D-sized batteries and what appeared to be the dried tail of a squirrel.
And one brown envelope with Joe Winder's name printed in small block letters.
He tore it open. Reading the note, he broke into a broad smile. ”Short and to the point,” he said.
Carrie read it: Dear Joe, You make one h.e.l.l of an oracle.
Don't worry about me, just keep up the fight.
We all s.h.i.+ne on!
Carrie folded the note and returned it to the envelope. ”I a.s.sume this means something.”
”Like the moon and the stars and the sun,” Joe Winder said. He felt truly inspired.
TWENTY-EIGHT.
The Amazing Kingdom of Thrills reopened with only a minimal drop in attendance, thanks to a three-for-one ticket promotion that included a free ride on d.i.c.kie the Dolphin, whose amorous behavior was now inhibited by four trainers armed with electric stun guns. Francis X. Kingsbury was delighted by the crowds, and emboldened by the fact that many customers actually complained about the absence of wild snakes. Kingsbury regarded it as proof that closing the Amazing Kingdom had been unnecessary, a costly overestimation of the average tourist's brainpower. Obviously the yahoos were more curious than afraid of lethal reptiles. A thrill is a thrill, Kingsbury said.
The two persons forced to sit through this speech were Pedro Luz and Special Agent Ron Donner of the U.S. Marshal Service. Agent Donner had come to notify Francis X. Kingsbury of a possible threat against his life.
”Ho! From who?”
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