82 Desire

of Russell’s favorites. Obediently, he opened it while Dina set the table. “For two or four?” she asked.
    “Just two.”
    He filled the glasses she set.
    Manny said, “Now y’all sit down and have yourselves a little feast.”
    Russell couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Despite the episode with the drinks, which he took for some macho show of power, he’d assumed they were cooking for Manny and Jack.
    “What?”
    “Go on, do it.”
    Manny gestured with the gun.
    The captives sat across from each other. Fear showed in Dina’s eyes, and Russell hoped it didn’t in his.
    “Drink a little toast, why don’t you?”
    Russell lifted his glass. “To you,” he said to Dina.
    She did the same. “To life. I liked it a lot.” And she began to cry.
    Manny roared, “Come on. Eat.”
    “Leave us alone, goddammit.” Russell tried to stand, but Manny pushed him back down and held him.
    Jack came up behind Dina, pried her mouth open, picked up a wad of noodles in his gloved hand, forced it between her teeth, and clamped her mouth shut. “Chew, goddammit.”
    Manny said, “Russell? You gonna eat? Or is Jack gonna do that again?”
    Somehow, both he and Dina forced down a few bites.
    Manny said, “Drink. Come on… have some wine.”
    Dina gave up and did it, and eventually Russell did, too.
    “Have another.” Manny poured, Dina drank. And then he dropped something into Russell’s wine and stirred it up. “Drink.”
    Unable to help himself, Russell stared at Dina, willing her to forgive him, but mostly not even trying to communicate, wanting only a glimpse of the person fully occupying his thoughts now, the woman whose life he would give anything to save; he wanted one last link with humanity as he remembered it, before the two animals had entered his life.
    Jack jerked her head back again, and held a knife underneath her eye, nudging the delicate tissue, nodding at Russell, who drained his glass without further prodding.
    The drug didn’t put him out. It only made him feel muzzy and relaxed, and silly, so that he giggled as they made Dina drink her wine, which also had something in it. And he gladly drank more of whatever they wanted, some single malt scotch, some brandy—it was all the same to him. He knew he was already dead.

Twenty-five
    THE MORE SKIP talked, the more frustrated she became. Rudolfo’s superiors took the view that a person who had not committed a crime had a right to disappear in his own sailboat if he so desired. Therefore they declined to involve the Coast Guard.
    Since Russell wasn’t officially a suspect in Beau’s murder, they weren’t buying him as an unofficial suspect. Eleanor Holser told a vastly different story from the one Skip told—one in which Skip had completely misread a little fight with her boyfriend—and that didn’t help either. Skip felt Russell was in grave danger if not already dead—that there was no time to be lost. The Fort Lauderdale police, despite every argument she could muster, simply could not be talked out of a wait-and-see view.
    It was nearly ten o’clock when Skip left in frustration. She stormed into the hotel room, ranting, gesturing, yelling out the story, so wrapped up in letting off steam that Steve finally resorted to the time-out sign to get her attention, which only made her madder.
    “You know I hate that.”
    “I’ve got an idea. It doesn’t happen every day.”
    She acknowledged him only with an impatient look, not about to be cheered up.
    “Let’s charter a boat,” he said.
    “What? It’s the middle of the night. Anyway, the On Y Va could be anywhere. And I can’t sail. And who can afford it?”
    “Well, let’s put it this way. I happen to be a successful film editor with quite a few bucks, which qualifies me to be eccentric. I have a yen to take my girlfriend on a midnight sail—scratch that—we have a friend who’s a little eccentric…”
    “Hold it. I’m getting the idea. You’re saying if we pay well enough, we can probably find a charter, no matter what kind of cockamamie story we tell.”
    Steve had already gone on to the next part of the problem. “We need someone who knows where to look—maybe someone with a little experience in the import business. And a fast power boat—one of those cigarette things.”
    “Oh, hell—we really need a helicopter.”
    “I went out for a drink a little earlier. As luck would have it, I found this bar on the ICW where people come in their boats. There was a