Either way meant trouble, the judge would reason, but a live Krome was bound to be more trouble than a dead Champ. Arthur Battenkill Jr. would find himself hoping the newspaper was right, hoping it was Krome’s barbecued bones that were found in the house, hoping Champ Powell was lying low somewhere—like the savvy ex-cop he was—waiting for things to cool off. He’d probably contact the judge in a day or two, and together they’d invent a plausible alibi. That’s how it would go. In the meantime there was Katie, who (between heaving sobs) would accuse Arthur Battenkill Jr. of arranging the cold-blooded murder of her former lover. The judge wouldn’t know what to do about that, but he’d found himself wondering whether a new diamond pendant might soothe his wife’s anguish.
On his lunch hour he would go out and buy her one.
When they returned to the motel, JoLayne changed to her workout clothes and went for a walk. Tom Krome made some phone calls—to his voice mail at The Register, where his insurance agent had left an oddly urgent message regarding Krome’s homeowner policy; to his answering machine at home, which apparently was out of order; to Dick Turnquist, who reported a possible sighting (in, of all places, Jackson Hole, Wyoming) of Krome’s future ex-wife.
Krome fell asleep watching a European golf tournament on ESPN. He woke up gasping for air, JoLayne Lucks astride him, jabbing his sides with her supernatural-blue fingernails.
“Hey!” she said. “Hey, you, listen up!”
“Get off—”
“Not until you tell me,” she said, “what the hell’s going on.”
“JoLayne, I can’t breathe—”
“‘Helluva risk,’ that’s what you said. But then it dawned on me: Why in the world would a federal lawman tell you—a newspaper guy, for Lord’s sake!—that he’s about to commit a break-in. Talk about risk. Talk about stupid.”
“JoLayne!”
She shifted some of her weight to her knees, so that Krome could inhale.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Welcome.”
She leaned forward until they were nose to nose. “He’s a smart man, Moffitt is. He wouldn’t blab anything so foolish in front of the press unless he knew there wasn’t going to be any story. And there’s not, is there? That’s why you haven’t taken out your damn notebook the whole time we’ve been on the road.”
Krome prepared to shield his ribs from a fresh attack. “I told you, I don’t write down every little thing.”
“Tom Krome, you are full of shit.” She planted her butt forcefully on his chest. “Guess what I did? I called Moffitt on his cellular, and guess what he told me. You’re not working for the paper now, you’re on medical leave. He checked it out.”
Krome tried to raise himself up. Medical leave? he thought. That idiot Sinclair—he’s managed to muck up a perfectly splendid resignation.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” JoLayne demanded. “What’s going on with you?”
“OK.” He slipped his arms under her knees and gently rolled her off. She stayed on the bed, stretched out, propped on her elbows.
“I’m waiting, Tom.”
He kept his eyes on the ceiling. “Here’s what really happened. My editor killed the lottery story, so I resigned. The ‘medical leave’ stuff is news to me—Sinclair probably made it up to tell the boss.”
JoLayne Lucks was incredulous. “You quit your job because of me?”
“Not because of you. Because my editor’s a useless, dickless incompetent.”
“Really. That’s the only reason?”
“And also because I promised to help you.”
JoLayne scooted closer. “Listen: You can’t quit the newspaper. You absolutely cannot, is that understood?”
“It’ll all work out. Don’t worry.”
“You damn men, I can’t believe it! I found another crazy one.”
“What’s so crazy about keeping a promise.”
“Lord,” said JoLayne. He was perfectly serious. A cornball, this guy. She said, “Don’t move, OK? I’m gonna do something irresponsible.”
Krome started to turn toward her, but she stopped him, lightly closing his eyes with one hand.
“You deaf? I told you not to move.”
“What is this?” he asked.
“I owe you a kiss,” she said, “from last night. Now please be still or I’ll bite your lips off.”
14
Tom Krome was caught by surprise.
“Well, say something,” JoLayne said.
“Wow.”
“Something original.”
“You taste like Certs.”
She kissed him again. “Spearmint flavored. I think I’m hooked on the darn things.”
Krome rolled on his side. He could see she was highly amused by his nervousness. “I’m lousy at this part,” he said.
“In other words, you’d rather skip the chitchat and get right to the fucking.”
Krome felt his cheeks get hot. “That’s not what—”
“I’m teasing.”
He sat up quickly. She was too much.
“Tom, you were sweet to quit your job. Misguided, but sweet. I figured you deserved a smooch.”
“It was … very nice.”
“Try to control yourself,” JoLayne said. “Here’s what you do now: Get in the car and go home. Back to work. Back to your life. You’ve done more than enough for me.”
“No way.”
“Look, I’ll be fine. Once Moffitt gets my lottery ticket, I’m outta here.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I swear, Tom. Back to Grange to be a land baroness.”
Krome said, “I don’t quit on stories.”
“Gimme a break.”
“What if Moffitt can’t find the ticket?”
JoLayne shrugged. “Then it wasn’t meant to be. Now start packing.”
“Not a chance. Not until you get your money.” He fell back on the pillow. “Suppose you wound up on the wet T-shirt circuit again. I couldn’t live with myself.”
She laid her head on his chest. “What is it you want?”
“One of those mints would be good.”
“From all this, I mean. All this wicked craziness.”
“A tolerable ending. That’s it,” Krome said.
“Makes for a better story, right?”
“Just a better night’s sleep.”
JoLayne groaned. “You’re not real. You can’t be.”
Krome made a cursory stab at sorting his motives. Maybe he didn’t want Moffitt to find the stolen Lotto ticket, because then the adventure would be over and he’d have to go home. Or maybe he wanted to recover the ticket himself, in some dramatic flourish, to impress JoLayne Lucks. It probably wasn’t anything noble at all; just dumb pride and hormones.
He said, “You want me to go, I’ll go.”
“Your tummy’s growling. You hungry again?”
“JoLayne, you’re not listening.”
She lifted her head. “Let’s stay like this awhile, right here in bed. See what happens.”
“OK,” Tom Krome said. She was too much.
Chub was gloating about the getaway. He said they wouldn’t have made it if Bode’s pickup hadn’t been parked in the blue zone, steps from the diner’s front door. He said the guy at the counter never saw three handicaps move so goddamn fast.
As the truck cruised toward Homestead, Shiner kept looking to see if they were being chased. Bode Gazzer was taut behind the wheel—he’d been expecting the Negro woman to cancel her credit card, but it jarred him anyway. The manager of the diner would be calling the law, no doubt about that.
“We gotta have a meeting,” Bode said. “Soon as possible.”
“With who?” Shiner asked.
“Us. The White Clarion Aryans.” It was time to start acting like a well-regulated militia. Bode said, “Maybe this afternoon we’ll hold a meeting.”
Chub leaned forward. “What’s wrong with right now?”
“Not in the truck. I can’t preside and drive at the
same time.”
“Hell, you can’t piss and whistle at the same time.” Chub ran a mossy-looking tongue across his front teeth. “We don’t need a damn meeting. We need our Lotto money.”
Bode said, “No, man, it’s too soon.”
Chub took out the .357 and placed it on the floorboard at his feet. “Before somethin’ else goes wrong,” he said.
Wedged between the squabbling criminals in the front seat, Shiner felt inexplicably safe. Chub was the toughest, and not only because of the guns. Bode could be a hardass, too, but he was more of a thinker; the idea man. Shiner liked his suggestion for a real militia meeting, liked his attention to orderliness and strategy. But before the White Clarion Aryans held a meeting, Shiner wanted to get his tattoo fixed. It couldn’t be that difficult, changing the W.R.B. to W.C.A. The screaming eagle was perfect the way it was.
When he inquired about stopping at a tattoo parlor, Chub laughed and said, “Just what you need.”
“I’m dead serious.”
Bode, stiffening in the driver’s seat: “We ain’t stoppin’ for no such nonsense.”
“Please, I got to!”
Chub said, “Aw, look at your damn arm. It’s still bruised up from the last time, like a rotten banana.”
“You don’t unnerstand.” Shiner’s chin dropped as he slid into a sulk.
Not this again, Chub thought. He snatched up the Colt and twisted the barrel into the kid’s groin. “Son, you ’bout the whiniest little fuck I ever met.”
Shiner’s head came up with a jerk. “I’m s-sorry.”
“Sorry don’t begin to cover it.”
Bode told his partner to take it easy. “We’re all three of us still jacked up from last night. Tell you what, let’s stop over at the trailer and fetch the automatics. Go out by the rock pit and let off some steam.”
“Way cool,” Shiner said, expectantly.
“Then, after, we’ll have a meeting.”
Chub said, “Whoop-dee-doo.” He put the pistol in his belt. “Fuck the rock pit. I wanna shoot at somethin’ that moves. Somethin’ bigger ‘n’ faster than a goddamn turtle.”
“Such as?”
“Wait and see,” said Chub. “Shoot a Jew, cap a Jap—”
“Pop a wop,” Shiner chimed.
“Yeah!”
Bode Gazzer hoped his partner’s sinister mood would pass before they broke out the serious toys.
Moffitt wasn’t supposed to get mad. He was a pro. He dealt with low-rent shitheads all the time.
But sneaking through the cramped apartment of Bodean James Gazzer, the agent felt his anger rise.
The wall poster of David Koresh, the Waco wacko himself. Moffitt had lost a friend in that fiasco of a raid.
Then there were the bullet holes in the plaster. Empty ammo clips. Stacks of gun magazines and Soldier of Fortune. Porno videos. A paperback book called The Poacher’s Bible. A pepper mill trimmed with a Nazi armband. A how-to pamphlet on fertilizer bombs. A clipped-out cartoon proposing a humorous aspect to the Holocaust. An assortment of NRA patches and bumper stickers. A closetful of camouflage clothes. Tacked to the peeling wallpaper behind the toilet: a Confederate flag. In the bedroom, a calico cross-stitched portrait of David Duke.
Moffitt thought: These guys must’ve had a blast, working on JoLayne.
He locked the front door behind him, bracing it with a chair. He opened a back window and punched out the screen, as an escape in case Bodean James Gazzer returned. The fresh air didn’t hurt, either—the place smelled of soiled laundry, cigaret ash and stale beer. Methodically, Moffitt began to search. He knew from experience that even the dimmest of thugs occasionally could be brilliant at concealing contraband—and a lottery ticket was easier to hide than an AK-47 or a kilo of hash.
The kitchen was first. One glance at the crusty silverware made Moffitt glad he wore surgical gloves. With a heavy forearm he cleared the cluttered dinette. There he dumped every box and tin from Bodean James Gazzer’s cabinets—sugar, flour, instant coffee, Cocoa Krispies, croutons, Quaker Oats.
No Lotto stub.
He took a deep breath before opening the refrigerator, but it wasn’t as rancid as he’d feared. The food section was practically empty except for Budweisers, marshmallow-filled cookies, ketchup and a fuzzy chunk of Gouda. Finding nothing hidden there, Moffitt hacked his way into the freezer compartment, a favorite stash of novice dopers and smugglers. A half-gallon container of ancient fudge-ripple ice cream went into a mixing bowl, which went into the stove. When the slop was melted, Moffitt strained it through a colander. Then he emptied the ice trays on the counter and examined each cube.
No ticket.
He grabbed a steak knife and headed for the bedroom, where he eviscerated the pillows, gutted the mattress and box spring, pried up the musty corners of the carpet. Inside Bodean James Gazzer’s dresser, Moffitt came across something he’d never before seen: camo-style underwear. There was also a World War II bayonet, a gummy-looking Penthouse and a pile of dunning notices from the National Rifle Association for unpaid dues. Moffitt was certain he had hit pay dirt in the bottom drawer, beneath a tangle of frayed socks, where he uncovered five crisp tickets from the Florida Lotto.
But none of the sequences matched JoLayne’s winning numbers, and the date of the drawing was wrong: December 2.
That’s tomorrow, thought Moffitt. Unbelievable—the $14 million they stole from her wasn’t enough. The fuckers want more.
He pocketed the tickets and, with some dread, moved to the bathroom. A colony of plump carpenter ants had taken over the sink, demonstrating a special fondness for Bodean James Gazzer’s toothbrush. Moffitt dove into the medicine chest and emptied the pill bottles. Several had been prescribed to persons other than Mr. Gazzer, who’d undoubtedly stolen them or forged the scrips. Moffitt took his time with a dispenser of Crest and a tube of hemorrhoid cream, which he flattened under a shoe and then opened with a wire cutter.
Nothing.
The vanity held an empty box of Trojan nonlubricated condoms, which intrigued Moffitt. Bodean James Gazzer’s apartment showed no signs of a woman’s presence—certainly no woman who was worried about catching a disease. Maybe Gazzer was gay, the agent thought, although it seemed unlikely, given the homophobic tendencies of gun nuts. Also, the pornographic videos stacked near the TV set bore heterosexually oriented titles.
Maybe the loon wore rubbers when he jacked off. Or maybe he used them with hookers. In any event, he’d been a busy boy.
The answer to the riddle of the Trojans turned up in a plastic trash can: five foil condom wrappers and a razor blade. Moffitt aligned them on the toilet seat. The condoms were inside the packages, and Moffitt cautiously removed them with tweezers. Each of them bore visible nicks or slices, which presumably was why they’d been discarded.
Moffitt concentrated on the bright wrappers. Clearly they hadn’t been torn open in the ordinary haste of lust. Instead they’d painstakingly been cut along one edge, undoubtedly with the razor blade. Even with such care, Bodean James Gazzer had damaged all five rubbers.
The sixth must have been the winner. Moffitt was pretty sure he knew where it was and what was hidden inside it.
“Fucker,” he said aloud.
Mr. Gazzer must be quite the optimist, the agent reflected. Why else would he care whether the condom in which he’d concealed the lottery ticket was usable?
On his way out of the apartment, Moffitt encountered a stout rat gorging itself in the mounds of sugar and cereal on the dinette. His first impulse was to shoot it, but then he thought: Why do Gazzer any favors? With luck, the critter was rabid.
By nature Moffitt was not a mischievous person, but he was inspired by the shabby trappings of hate. He had a nagging image of Bodean Gazzer and his sadistic partner—one would be stretched out in his underwear on the futon, the other might be slouched at the dinette. They’d be slugging down Budweisers, laughing about what they’d done to JoLayne Lucks, trying to remember who’d punched her where. The
look in her eyes. The sounds she made.
Moffitt simply could not slip away and allow such shitheads to go on with their warped lives, exactly as before. After all, how often did one get the opportunity to make a lasting impression upon paranoid sociopaths?
Not often enough. Moffitt felt morally obligated to fuck with Bodean James Gazzer’s head. It took only a few extra minutes, and afterwards even the rat seemed amused.
Sinclair was overcome the instant he touched the cooters: a warm tingle that started preternaturally in his palms and raced up both arms to his spine.
He was sitting cross-legged in Demencio’s yard, on the lip of the moat. The daily visitation was over, the pilgrims were gone. Sinclair had never handled a turtle before. Demencio said go ahead, help yourself. They don’t bite or nothin’.
Sinclair picked up one of the painted cooters and set it delicately in his lap. The bearded face gazing up from the grooved carapace was purely beatific. And the turtle itself was no less exquisite—bright gemlike eyes, a velvety neck striped in greens, golds and yellows. Sinclair reached into the water and picked up another one, and then another. Before long, he was acrawl with baby turtles—rubbery legs pumping, tiny claws scratching harmlessly on the fabric of his pants. The sensation was hypnotic, almost spiritual. The cooters seemed to emanate a soft, soothing current.
Demencio, who was refilling the moat with “holy” water, asked Sinclair if he felt all right. Sinclair spontaneously began to tremble and hum. Demencio couldn’t make out the tune, but it was nothing he was dying to hear on the radio. Turning to Joan and Roddy: “I’d say it’s time to take the boy home.”
Sinclair didn’t want to go. He looked up at Roddy. “Isn’t this amazing?” Thrusting both hands high, full of dripping turtles: