When she came out, Sacco was obediently stationed on the sofa. He had folded the towel triangularly across his lap, a quaint act of modesty that Eugenie might have found charming under other circumstances.

“I cannot believe you haven’t got a PC,” he remarked. “Don’t you feel totally lost and out of touch?”

“You have no idea.”

Sacco flinched when she jerked the towel away.

“How tall are you, anyway?” he asked.

“Six feet even, but don’t be intimidated,” she said, hoping just the opposite.

Sacco said, “You wanna hear something weird? I’m the exact same height as Gates.”

“Cool. Are your cocks the same size, too?”

Sacco looked down at himself in a clinical way, pondering the possibility. Eugenie Fonda was alarmed to think that she’d once regarded this man as intriguing. He was simply fucked-up, and not in a particularly interesting way.

“It’s getting late,” she repeated, hoping he’d pick up on her lack of enthusiasm.

“Then let’s get busy. I’m ready,” Sacco said.

“You are?”

He patted the tops of his spidery-haired legs, inviting her to hop aboard.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Eugenie said.

“You can’t hurt me. I’m beyond pain.”

Just my luck, Eugenie thought. She placed herself on Sacco’s lap, facing away. He made a growling sound and said they should pretend they were riding a Harley.

“More like a Lark scooter,” she muttered.

“What’d you say?”

Miraculously the doorbell rang. Eugenie briskly unsaddled and snatched up the towel, covering herself as she hurried to the foyer. Through the peephole she saw him.

“Boyd?”

“Please, Genie.”

She opened the door and whispered, “What’s all this?”

He had shown up in flip-flops, baggy surfer shorts and a loose citrus-colored shirt with palm trees all over it.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

“Absolutely not.” She stepped outside into a cold drizzle, shutting the door behind her.

“You just get out of the shower?”

“No, Boyd, I’m dancing in the Dallas ballet. What are you doing here?”

Nervously he ran his tongue across his teeth. “I’ve been thinking about what you said the other night. About me being so…”

“Dull?” Eugenie Fonda said.

“Predictable. And you’re completely right.”

“It’s forty-eight degrees out here, Boyd, and I’m wearing a towel. Could you get to the goddamn point?”

“Here’s the point: I’ll change.”

“Sure you will.”

“Give me a chance,” Shreave said. “Just look at me!”

Eugenie was certain she heard breathing on the other side of the door-her hot date, eavesdropping. She couldn’t decide which sight was more comical, Sacco ranting in the nude or Boyd Shreave dressed up like one of the Beach Boys and freezing his ass off.

“Genie, close your eyes and hold out your hand.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake.”

“Please,” Shreave said.

Eugenie did what he asked, thinking: If he gives me a ring, I’ll throttle him.

“There. You can look now,” he said.

In her palm was a ticket envelope bearing the red-and-blue logo of American Airlines.

“Where to?” she asked warily.

“Florida. You and me are going kayaking through the Ten Thousand Islands,” Shreave announced in his platinum voice, “where the weather today is seventy-four degrees Fahrenheit under clear and sunny skies.”

Eugenie Fonda felt her heart begin to hammer. She shivered and blinked the chilly raindrops from her eyelashes. Inside the apartment, Sacco was lurking like some randy underfed ape, and Eugenie felt appalled that she’d come so close to seducing him. Boyd Shreave was a lump and also married, but at least he wasn’t a paranoid geek.

And Florida was Florida, especially in the dead of winter.

“When do we leave?” she asked.

Shreave beamed in triumph. “Day after tomorrow,” he said, and kissed her so hard that it curled some if not all of her toes.

Fry waited until they were almost at the Naples city limits before telling his mother. Otherwise she would have whipped a U-turn and hauled back to Everglades City and made a scene.

“Somebody hurt Mr. Piejack real bad,” Fry said.

“Hurt him how?” Honey Santana pivoted in the driver’s seat.

“Eyes on the road, Mom.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“They jammed one of his hands into a stone-crab trap,” Fry said, “while it was full of stone crabs.”

Honey grimaced. “Ouch. Mediums or larges?”

“Jumbos,” the boy said.

“Uh-oh.”

“Three of his fingers got pinched off and the other two got broken. It happened yesterday afternoon.”

Honey nodded. “I thought I heard an ambulance coming across the causeway.”

Fry said, “Here’s where it gets nasty. The paramedics opened the trap and busted off all the crab claws, with his fingers still caught in the pincers. They put ’em on ice in a cooler, but supposedly they forgot to mark which of the fingers went where-”

“Oh stop!”

“I’m serious. They finally got Mr. Piejack into surgery, but then the nurses started arguing with the doctors about who’d get to keep the claws for dinner,” Fry said, “and then the lights went out in the middle of the operation-anyhow, it was a major cluster. Somehow Mr. Piejack ends up with his pinkie sewn to his thumb stump, and his thumb stitched to the nub of his index finger, I don’t remember exactly…”

Honey whistled softly. “I guess he’ll be selling his piano.”

“Mom, what are you doing? Why’re you stopping here?”

“I’m not stopping. I’m waiting for the traffic to pass so I can turn the car around,” she explained. “I need to speak with your ex-father.”

Fry deftly snatched the keys from the ignition.

“Give me those,” his mother said.

“No, ma’am.”

“Do you want to kill us both? We’re parked in the middle of Route 41, or didn’t you notice?”

She has a point, Fry thought. It was a good way to get flattened by an eighteen-wheeler.

“Dad’s in Miami,” he said, “so there’s no point racing home.”

“Did they catch whoever did this? Have they arrested anybody?”

“No, but Mr. Piejack told the cops it was three Spanish-speaking guys he’d never seen before. So don’t automatically assume Dad was involved,” Fry said, though he himself assumed the same thing.

His mother laughed. “Who else could it be? A normal person would’ve had Louis beat up or shot. It’s just like Perry to get carried away and hire a gang of sadistic gangsters. Stone crabs, I mean, how sick is that!”

Cars and trucks and campers were stacking up, honking behind them.

“The keys, please.” Honey held out a hand.

“What-you think he was trying to impress you or something?” the boy asked. “Maybe he was just pissed off.”

Honey sighed and adjusted the rearview mirror in order to better appraise the chaos mounting behind them. Fry sullenly tossed her the car keys.

“Attaboy. Now let’s go buy some kayaks,” she said.

“Whatever.”

Fry didn’t know what his mother was planning, but he feared that she was slipping into one of her manic spirals. She’d made no credible effort to land another job, even though the manager at Wal-Mart had left two phone messages asking her to come in for an interview.

Meanwhile she was spending hours at the kitchen table poring over marine charts of the Ten Thousand Islands. The more she gibbered about starting an ecotour business, the more Fry regretted not telling his father how concerned he was. Honey Santana had no innate sense of direction, frequently getting lost in broad daylight in an automobile, on a grid bristling with street signs. Out on the water, the possibilities for calamity were infinite.

Still, Fry tried to remain optimistic. After all, several days had passed since his mother had mentioned the foulmouthed telemarketer. That could only mean she’d already confronted (and probably crucified) the a-hole, either by telephone or snail mail.