Snake is a petty criminal who lives in an abandoned boat and bullies people for handouts. He attacks Puggy after stealing Puggy's money, and develops a grudge for the smaller man afterwards. This leads him to try to rob the Jolly Jackal at gunpoint, but he discovers Arthur upon his arrival there and decides to try and become a serious criminal as a result. Snake is suddenly driven by a desire to make it big time, but he is mentally unstable and not very intelligent, and this leads him to make very bad decisions. He gets away with these decisions for quite some time because much of the city is distracted by its own general craziness, and manages to make it all the way onto a plane to the Bahamas with a gun and the briefcase, which he believes carries drugs or jewels, even though he has activated the bomb's timer at the security checkpoint. Once inside the plane, he goes as far as to threaten the pilots with the gun until they initiate takeoff, and he shoots Monica when she tries to take the gun from him. When Eddie throws the briefcase out of the plane, Snake jumps after it, determined to hold on to his treasure. He dies as a direct result, and no one is the worse for his loss. By the end of the novel, not even his best friend Eddie can go along with his insane scheme. Snake represents the worst kind of insanity that Miami has to offer, and is thrust into his deeply criminal acts by a series of bizarre circumstances.
