“He’s almost here, Dad.”

“Yeah, I know.” Perry Skinner stopped and whirled around.

Huffing and sweaty, the tall moaner advanced with the grinning, witless confidence of the self-righteous. From his purloined hotel robe he produced a folded pamphlet, which he held out to Skinner as if it were a deed to a gold mine.

“No offense, sir, but by your coarse language I could tell it’s been awhile since you brought your soul to church. Here, please take the Word.”

Fry held his breath. Slowly his father drew the.45 and placed the barrel upon the florid tip of Brother Manuel’s nose.

“Manny,” Skinner said, “I got my own word: Semiautomatic.”

The leaflet fluttered from the moaner’s fingers. “Easy, dog,” he said.

“This is my church,” Skinner went on, “this island out here and all the others-so many islands that nobody’s counted ’em all. And the sky and the Gulf and the rivers that roll out of the ’glades, all of it’s my church. And you know what? God Almighty or whatever His name might be, I believe He’d approve.”

Fry said, “Come on. Let’s go find Mom.”

The boy was more worried than before. Learning of the gunshots plainly had set his father on edge, too.

“Manny, I’m gonna ask you a personal question and I expect an honest, upright Christian answer,” Skinner said. “You’re fornicatin’ with Sister Shirelle, aren’t you? You already baptized that young lady in your own special way, am I right? Told her to close her eyes and get down on her knees and wait for sweet salvation.”

Half-lit by the moon, Brother Manuel blinked once in slow motion, like an anemic tortoise.

“Thought so,” Skinner said. “Look-me and my son are gonna leave now, and you’re gonna go back to your people and boogie for Christ and forget you ever laid your sorry heathen eyes on me. Got it?” Skinner lowered the.45.

“Amen,” said the moaner and ran away, his white robe flapping like a shredded sail.

Eighteen

Boyd Shreave dreamed he was working at Relentless, phoning suckers at dinnertime. He was trying to sell residential lots on a sodded landfill in a future housing development called Lesion Hills. To the east was a pig farm and to the west was a dioxin factory; upwind, a crematorium. All unsavory details were perversely included in the telephone script, and elucidated with appalling candor to prospective customers.

It was a nightmare. Everyone whom Shreave called would insult him savagely then hang up. When he turned to commiserate with Eugenie Fonda, he was aghast to find her cubicle occupied by his wife, who menaced him crudely with a Taser. And the dream got worse: Shreave neglected to observe that the last number on his call sheet belonged to one D. Landry, a disaster compounded by his failure to recognize his own mother’s voice until he was midway through the sales pitch, when he heard a string of witheringly familiar debasements that culminated with the phrase “worthless pile of muskrat shit.”

Shreave awoke in a sweat. He remembered where he was, though it gave him no comfort. His wristwatch showed 3:46 a.m. He called out Genie’s name but didn’t get a response. With larval contortions he shed his sleeping bag.

The stars were gold and the temperature was falling and the campfire was dead. In such a setting it seemed reasonable for a man to seek a snuggle with his girlfriend. Through the shadows Shreave crawled toward the tent that held Eugenie, only to find it empty.

“She hit the bricks,” Honey Santana said, startling him.

“Not funny.”

Honey’s head popped out of the other tent. “She ran off with an Indian. I peeked.”

“You can do better than that,” said Shreave.

“Some big Indian with a gun. I know what I saw.”

“Just tell me where she is.”

Honey said, “This is hopeless,” and closed the flap.

Shreave shouted for Genie again and again. He grabbed his flashlight and went stomping into the trees, a decision quickly reconsidered and reversed. Angrily he stood outside Honey’s tent and commanded her to reveal what had really happened.

“I told you already,” she said.

Shreave foolishly reached inside, snatched the end of the sleeping bag and attempted to shake her out. Honey’s second kick landed flush on his chin, causing him to buckle. Through a starburst of pain he fumbled to realign his lower jaw with the rest of his face.

She said, “I’m nominating you for the Dickhead Hall of Fame. Seriously.”

Once again, assertiveness had brought pain and indignity to Shreave. It seemed doubtful that he’d ever transform himself into the sort of physical beast that aroused women such as Eugenie Fonda. His only consolation was that she hadn’t been there to witness him getting kicked in the kisser.

“This is all on you,” he whined at Honey, “for scamming us into this trip. It’s your fault she got kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped? That Indian was ripping off our supplies when your girlfriend begged to sneak away with him. She practically offered to ball him on the spot.”

“Liar!”

“She moves fast, Boyd.” Honey emerged from her tent and started to build a new fire. “I pretended to snore so he’d think I was sleeping.”

“Why the hell didn’t you do something?”

“Gosh, I don’t know. Because he was holding a rifle?” She set a match to the tinder and watched it flare. “Anyway, we’re alone now, so let’s have a talk.”

“What about?”

“You,” Honey said.

The subject appealed immensely to Shreave.

“Tell me an enthralling life story,” she said, “so I can understand you better.”

“Not a problem.” Shreave misread her interest in the predictable way. His jaw was throbbing but if she wanted to talk, he’d talk. Whatever floated her boat.

Honey said, “First, you should get up off your knees-no, never mind. That’ll work.”

Turning away, she opened the remaining duffel and removed some items out of Shreave’s sight. She asked him to shut his eyes and, idiotically, he complied. His dismay over Eugenie’s defection was rapidly evaporating at the prospect of intimacy with another handsome woman, even if she happened to be wacko.

The campfire was blazing again. The heat felt good on Shreave’s face. He heard Honey stepping across the broken oyster shells and then moving about the bushes. He hoped that she’d snuck off to get undressed.

Moments later she was standing behind him, whispering: “Give me your hands, Boyd.”

He was delighted to oblige. She smelled wonderful, and he noticed he was getting hard-a marvelous development in the wake of the stun-gun accident. Not even the sound of duct tape being ripped from a roll crimped Shreave’s rising anticipation.

When he turned to peek, Honey thumped him smartly on the head. Thinking only of his erection and the daring ways it might be gratified, he obediently remained motionless while she taped his wrists and ankles behind him. Then something as light as a lei, though more coarsely textured, settled around his neck.

“Don’t dare move,” Honey said.

Again she slipped away. Soon there was a slight noise behind him.

“What’re you up to now?” Those were Shreave’s final words before the rope drew snug around his throat.

His eyes popped open and Honey reappeared, divinely backlit by the fire glow. Shreave was disappointed to observe that she was fully clothed. She informed him that he was attached to a noose looped over a poinciana bough. If he attempted to pull free, she said, the slipknot at the base of his neck would come tight and possibly strangle him.

Shreave believed her, although he clung like an ape to his carnal ambitions. He’d watched a cable documentary about asphyxiating sexual practices, and he speculated that Honey was seeking to initiate him. Spurred by Eugenie’s drop-of-a-hat betrayal, he’d decided to let himself be seduced no matter what the dangers might be.

Honey said, “Sorry about this contraption, but you already assaulted me twice.”