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.”

Honey’s outlook on men was sinking to a point of abject revulsion. The day was new, yet already she’d been ridiculed by a soulless twit and kidnapped by a reeking pervert.

“You might even like it.” Louis Piejack winked over his shoulder. “I never had no complaints in the bedroom department.”

Honey no longer could stand it. “Know what? I need a potty break.”

Piejack stopped walking. “Well, hurry it up,” he said.

“Right here-in front of you? I can’t, Louis.”

“Okay, I won’t peek. But I ain’t undoin’ the damn rope.”

As soon as he turned away, Honey pretended to unzip her pants. After lowering herself into a credible squat she began searching the ground for something sharp, heavy or both.

“I don’t hear nuthin,” Piejack grumbled suspiciously.

Honey said, “It’s hard to do this while you’re standing there listening. Just give me a minute.”

She found a gnarly chunk of coral the size of a mango; the weight was perfect. Clutching it in her right hand, she rose slowly and took aim at the back of Piejack’s crusty head.

“You lied,” he was saying. “You don’t really gotta go.”

“Louis, would you please shut up so I can concentrate?”

“Concentrate on what? It ain’t a chess match, angel, it’s just pissin’ in the woods.”

Honey Santana raised the piece of coral to strike him, but Piejack was already half-turned, swinging the gumbo-limbo like a boom. The blow landed flush on the left side of her face, and she heard a bone break. Then the sun exploded into a million flaming pink raindrops.

Like flamingos, Honey thought as she fell.

Flying home.

Fry had been confident he could locate the clearing where his father had told him to wait, but the lay of the island looked different in the morning light. After twenty minutes of circular meandering he admitted he was lost.

“Let’s take a time-out,” said Eugenie Fonda, whose own navigational skills were better suited to the city.

Fry put down the metal camera case and leaned against a buttonwood. “I don’t feel so great.”

When he told Eugenie about the skateboard accident, she said, “Your old man should’ve left you in the hospital.”

“We were worried about Mom.”

“I’ve seen her in action, bucko. She can take care of herself.”

“What’s that shiny thing in your mouth?” Fry asked.

Eugenie smiled self-consciously. She’d never been asked about it by a boy his age. “A pearl,” she said.

“Is it real?”

“Yessir.”

“Can I see?”

She extended her tongue in a prim and clinical way, so as not to give the kid any wild ideas. Fry adjusted the football helmet to get a better look.

“Sweet.” He leaned close. “Did that hurt when they made the hole?”

“Like a mother,” she said.

“There’s this girl in eighth grade, she’s got a gold safety pin in her nose and a platinum screw through one eyebrow and an I-bolt in her right ear. They call her ‘Toolbox.’”

Genie said, “Kids can be awful.”

“I like your pearl.”

“Thank you, Fry, but I believe I’ve outgrown it.” She unfastened the stud, wiped it on the front of her pullover and dropped it in the palm of his hand.

“Ma’am, I really can’t take this,” he protested. “No way.”

Genie closed his fingers over the pearl and said, “It’s for when you meet that certain girl. But first you gotta make me a blood promise.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t ever change. By that I mean don’t grow up to be a jerkoff like ninety percent of the men I meet.”

“Mom always tells me the same thing. Except she says it’s more like ninety-five.”

“Best advice you’ll ever get: Stay a gentleman, and you’ll never be alone. Don’t lie, don’t bullshit, don’t fuck around-Christ, I can’t believe I said ‘fuck around’ to a fourteen-year-old boy! I’m sorry.”

Fry laughed. “I’ll be thirteen in June.”

Genie made a gun with her fingers and cocked it to her temple.

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “I hear worse stuff every day at school.”

“Now you’re depressing me. Let’s get movin’.”

Fry pocketed the pearl. Eugenie said it was her turn to be the bellhop, and reached for the Halliburton. They’d walked for only a few minutes when the boy began to lag. Eugenie went back and entwined her free arm in one of his.