"I don't know what's wrong
with meThe smell, I guess - that rotten jungle
smell-" His chest hitched, he made a gurk sound
deep in his throat, and leaned out the door again
That time he missed his hold on the steering wheel,
and if I hadn't grabbed him by the collar and
yanked him back, he would have gone sprawling
face-first into his own whoop
He leaned back, eyes closed, face wet with sweat,
panting rapidly
"We better take him back to El Palacio," Wireman
said"I don't like to lose the time - hell, I
don't like to lose him - but this shit ain't
right
"As far as Perse's concerned, it's exactly right,"
I saidNow my bad leg was itching almost as much
as my armIt felt like electricity"It's her
little poison beltHow about you, Wireman? How's
your gut?"
938
"Fine, but my bad eye - the one that used to be
bad - is itching like a bastard, and my head's
kind chanel quilted bags of hummingProbably from that damn radio
"It's not the radioAnd the reason it's getting
to Jack and not to us is because we've beenSort of ironic, isn't
it?"
Behind the wheel, Jack groaned
"What can you do for him, muchacho? Anything?"
"I think so
I had my pads on my lap and my pencils and erasers
in a belt-packNow I flipped to the picture of
Jack and found one of my art-gum erasersI took
away his mouth and the lower arcs of his eyes, all
the way up to the cornersThe itching in my right
arm was fiercer than ever, and I actually had no
doubt that what I planned to do would workI
summoned up the memory of Jack's smile in my
kitchen - the one I'd asked him to give me while
thinking of something particularly good - and drew
it quickly with my Midnight Blue pencilIt took
no more than thirty seconds (the eyes were really
the key, when it comes to smiles, chanel earrings logo they always are),
939
but those few lines changed the whole idea of Jack
Cantori's face
And I got something I hadn't expectedAs I drew,
I saw him kissing a girl in a bikiniI could feel her smooth skin, even a few
little grains of sand nestling in the hollow at
the small of her backI could smell her shampoo
and taste a faint ghost of salt on her lipsI
knew her name was Caitlin and he called her Kate
I put my pencil back in the little belt-pack and
zipped it closed"Jack?" Speaking quietlyHis
eyes were closed, and sweat still stood out on his
cheeks and forehead, but I thought his breathing
had slowed"How are you now? Any better?"
"Yeah," he said without opening his eyes"What'd
you do?"
"Well, as long as it's just the three of us, we
might as well call it what it is: magicA little
counterspell I tossed your way
Wireman reached over my shoulder, picked up replica chanel jewelry the
pad, studied the picture, and nodded"I'm
beginning to believe she should have left you
alone, muchacho
940
I said, "It was my daughter she should have left
alone
x
We stayed where we were for five minutes, letting
Jack get his second windAt last he said he felt
able to go onI wondered if
we would have run into the same problems if we had
gone around by water
"Wireman, have you seen any fishing boats anchored
off the south end of the Key?"
He considered"You know, I haven'tThey usually
stay on the Don Pedro side of the straitThat's
odd, isn't it?"
"It's not odd, it's fucking sinister," Jack said It was down to nothing but a
stripSeagrape and banyan branches scraped along
the sides of the slowly trundling Mercedes, making
hellish screeeing soundsThe road, lumped upward
with tunneling roots and broken down to gravel and
potholes in some places, wholesale tiffany continued to bend inland,
and now it had also begun to climb
941
We crept along, mile after slow mile, with the
leaves and branches slapping and whackingI kept
expecting the road to break down entirely, but the
thick interlacing foliage overhead had protected
it from the elements to some degree, and it never
quite didThe banyans gave way to an oppressive
forest of Brazilian Peppers, and there we saw our
first wildlife: a huge bobcat that stood for a
moment in the rubbly remains of the road, hissing
at us with its ears laid flat, then fled into the
underbrushA little farther on, a dozen plump
black caterpillars fell onto the windshield and
burst open, spreading gummy guts that the wipers
and washer-fluid could do little to clear; they
only spread the remains around until looking out
through the windshield was like looking out of an
eye with a cataract on omega seamaster de ville i