When JoLayne mentioned it, Tom said, “That’s because I’d rather be the hunter than the hunted. Wouldn’t you?”
“Well, we got pretty close to the bastard.”
“Yeah. You’re good at this.”
“For a black girl, you mean?”
“JoLayne, don’t start with that.”
“Not all of us hang out on street corners. Some of us actually know our way around the woods … or maybe were you referring to women in general.”
“Actually, I was.” Tom decided it was better to be thought a chauvinist than a racist—assuming JoLayne was half serious.
She said, “Are you saying your wife never took you stalking?”
“Not that I can recall.”
“And none of your girlfriends?” Now JoLayne was smiling. Obviously she enjoyed giving him a start now and then.
Kissing his neck sweetly: “I’m sorry to be jerking your chain, but it’s more fun than I can stand. You don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve had a guilt-ridden white boy all to myself.”
“That’s me.”
“We should’ve made love again,” she said, suddenly pensive. “Last night—to hell with the rain and cold, we should’ve done it.”
Tom thought it an odd moment to raise the subject, what with a gang of heavily armed lunatics three hundred feet away.
“I decided a long time ago,” she said, “that if I knew exactly when I was going to die, I’d make a point of screwing my brains out the night before.”
“Good plan.”
“And we could die out here on this island. I mean, these are very bad guys we’re chasing.”
Tom said he preferred to think positive thoughts.
“But you do agree,” JoLayne said, “there’s a chance they’ll kill us.”
“Hell, yes, there’s a chance.”
“That’s all I’m saying. That’s why I wish we’d made love.”
“Oh, I think we’ll get another shot.” Tom, trying to stay upbeat.
JoLayne Lucks closed her eyes and rolled her head back.
“Mortal fear makes for great sex—I read that someplace.”
“Mortal fear.”
“It wasn’t Cosmo, either. I’m sorry for babbling, Tom, I’m just really—”
“Nervous. Me, too,” he said. “Let’s concentrate on what to do about these assholes who stole your lottery ticket.”
The dreamy expression passed from JoLayne’s face. “That wasn’t all they did.”
“I know.”
“But still I’m not sure if I can make myself pull the trigger.”
“Maybe it won’t come to that,” he said.
JoLayne pointed up in the mangrove branches. A tiny barrel-shaped beetle had become trapped in one of the gossamer webs. Slowly, almost casually, the spider was crossing the intricate net toward the struggling insect.
“That’s what we need. A web,” JoLayne said.
They watched the stalking until a drawn-out cry broke the stillness; not a woman’s cry, this time, but a man’s. It was no less harrowing.
JoLayne shuddered and rose to her knees. “Damn. What now?”
Tom Krome got up quickly. “Well, I’d rather have them screaming than singing campfire songs.” He held out his hand. “Come on. Let’s go see.”
Chub didn’t trust either Bode or Shiner to shoot the crab safely off his hand. He didn’t even trust himself.
“I feel like dogshit,” he admitted.
They persuaded him to lie down, and the panic passed after a few minutes. The piercing pain subsided into a dead throbbing weight. Bode brought a lukewarm Budweiser and Shiner offered a stick of beef jerky. From Amber, nothing; not a peep of sympathy.
“I’m cold,” Chub complained. “I got the shakes.”
Bode told him the wound was badly infected. “What I can see of it,” he added. The crab had quite a mouthful.
“Is the fucker dead or alive?” Chub, squinting fretfully.
Shiner said, “Dead.”
Bode said, “Alive.”
Chub looked to Amber for the tiebreaker. “I can’t honestly tell,” she said.
“God, I’m freezin’. My skin’s on fire but the rest a me is freezin’ cold.”
Amber pulled the tarpaulin off the tree and blanketed Chub, up to his neck. He was thrilled by what he perceived, incorrectly, as an act of comfort and affection. Amber’s true intent was selfish: to conceal from plain view Chub’s stringy nakedness, as well as the ghastly crab.
He said, “Thank you, darling. Later we’ll go on that walk you promised.”
“You’re in no shape to walk anywhere.”
Shiner said, “Amen, that’s a fact.” Dreading the thought of the two of them alone.
Bodean Gazzer warmed a pot of coffee on the fire. Chub began to doze. Amber furtively tried to retrieve her waitress shorts but they caught on Chub’s ponytail, which snapped him awake. “No, don’t you dare! They’re mine, goddammit, you gave ’em to me!” Twisting and shaking his head.
“OK, OK.” Amber backed off.
From beneath the tarp emerged Chub’s good hand. It readjusted the shiny pants across his nose and mouth, leaving his un-patched eye exposed through one of the leg holes.
Shiner, his back turned to Chub, mouthed the words: “He’s crazy.”
“Thanks for the news flash,” said Amber.
They drank the coffee while Bodean Gazzer read aloud from the writings of the First Patriot Covenant. When he got to the part about Negroes and Jews being descended from the devil, Amber waved a hand. “Where does it say that in the Scriptures?”
“Oh, it’s in there. ‘Those who lay down with Satan will bring forth from his demon seed only children of darkness and deceit.’” Bode was winging it. He hadn’t cracked a Bible since junior high.
Amber remained skeptical, but Shiner chirped: “If the colonel says it’s in there, it’s in there.” Though Shiner couldn’t recall his fanatically reborn mother invoking such a potent verse. It seemed like something she would’ve mentioned, too; demon seeds!
Chub lifted his head and requested his sack of marine glue. Angrily Bode said, “You’re done with that shit.”
“I ain’t, either.” Whenever Chub spoke, the satiny fabric of Amber’s shorts puckered around his mouth. Amber expected she would carry the freaky vision to her grave.
Bodean Gazzer was saying, “Christ, you already got a fucked-up eye, a fucked-up hand—last thing you need is a fucked-up brain. You’re a soldier, remember? A major.”
“My ass.” Chub, glowering through the pants.
Bode resumed reading, but only Shiner remained attentive. His questions mostly concerned the living accommodations provided in Montana by the First Patriot Covenant. Did the pillboxes have central heating? Was there cable TV, or a dish?
Chub, who’d nodded off again, suddenly sprang to a sitting position. “My gun! Where’s it at?”
“Probably in the boat,” Bode said disapprovingly, “with your camos.”
“Go find it!”
“I’m busy.”
“Now! I ast for my goddamn gun!” Chub had remembered the lottery ticket, hidden in one of the chambers.
Shiner said, “I’ll go.”
“Like hell,” Chub snarled. His eye fell upon Amber. She was on the other side of the campfire, sitting beside the kid; real close, too. Touching him—touching his pudgy arm!
Chub didn’t realize she was icing the tattoo, but it likely wouldn’t have mattered. To Bode Gazzer he said: “Time for the meetin’.”
“What?”
“Of the WCA. We got ‘portant bidness, remember?”
“Oh yeah,” said Bode. He’d have preferred to wait until the crab crisis was resolved. Encumbered as he was, Chub had lost some of the menacing presence that was so useful in tight confrontations.
Bode called the meeting to order with such a lack of enthusiasm that it put Amber on alert. She gave Shiner a quick jab with an elbow, to let him know it was coming; wha
t they’d debated privately in the hours before dawn. Shiner looked crushed, like a kid who just found there was no such thing as Santa Claus.
“Son,” Bode Gazzer began, “first I want you to know how much we ’preciate all you done for the militia. We ain’t gonna forget it, neither. Down the road we intend to settle up fair and square. But the thing is, it’s not workin’ out so good. Particularly with the weapons, son—you’re just too damn excitable.”
Chub cut in: “You like to get ever’ one of us kilt, shootin’ at birds and bunny rabbits. Jesus!”
“I said I’m sorry,” Shiner reminded them. “And, Colonel, didn’t I promise to pay for them holes in your truck?”
“You did, you will, and I respect that. Truly I do. But we’re in a high-risk scenario here. We got the Black Tide on our asses, not to mention the NATO problem over in the Bahamas. That’s wall-to-wall Negroes, son. We can’t afford no mistakes.”
Chub said: “Life or death. This ain’t a game.”
“And that’s how come we got to let you go,” said Bode Gazzer. “Go on home and watch over your momma. Ain’t no shame in that.”
Shiner surprised them both. He stood up and said, “No way.” He glanced at Amber, who gave a nod of support. “You can’t kick me out. You can’t.” He pointed at the bruised and scabby tattoo. “See there? W.C.A. I’m in for life.”
“Son, I’m sorry, but it’s no good.” Bode understood it was up to him to reason with the boy, because Chub had no tolerance for argument. “All we can say is thanks for everything, and so long. Also, we’re gonna give you a thousand bucks for all your loyalty.”
Amber chuckled sarcastically. These guys were unbelievable.
Emboldened, Shiner said, “A thousand dollars is a goddamn joke.”
Bode asked him what he wanted.
“To stay in the militia,” Shiner answered briskly, “plus I want one-third of the lottery money. I earned it.”
Chub hurled the tarpaulin aside and lurched to his feet. “Shoot the motherfucker,” he said to Bode.
“Just hold on.”
“If you don’t, I will.”
Bode Gazzer scowled at Shiner. “Goddammit, son.” He took the stolen .380 out of his belt. “Why’d you put me in this posture?”
Amber saw that Shiner was scared out of his mind. She said: “Colonel, there’s something you ought to know. Tell him, Shiner. Tell them what you did at Jewfish Creek.”
Here was the big bluff. Shiner struggled to remember what Amber had coached him to say, exactly the way she’d said it last night. But he couldn’t quite piece it all together—the sight of the Beretta had unnerved him.
“About the videotape,” Amber prodded.
“Oh … yeah.”
“The phone call you made,” she said.
Bode asked, “What phone call?”
“That’s right,” Shiner said. “The store video, ’member? You guys had me swipe it from the Grab N’Go. On account of it proves you didn’t win the Lotto—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Chub barked.
“—because you didn’t even show up in Grange till the day after. It’s all on the tape.”
Bode, tapping the .380 against his thigh. “What phone call?”
“Tell him,” Amber said to Shiner.
“To my Ma,” Shiner lied. “The tape’s hid in my car and the car’s at Major Chub’s trailer. I called my Ma and told her come down get it, she don’t hear from me by Thursday—”
“Tuesday,” Amber interjected.
“Right, Tuesday. I told her come get the car.”
“Then what?” Bodean Gazzer’s throat was like chalk.
Shiner said, “I told her to give the video to the black girl. JoLayne. She’ll know what to do.”
“You’re full a shit,” Bode said, without conviction.
“I ain’t.”
“I heard him make the phone call,” said Amber.
“Then goddamn the both a you.”
Amber announced she was going for a swim, alone. Shiner was relieved, because he’d been waiting to take a world-record leak.
Chub and Bode withdrew to the Reel Luv for an urgent conference. Even in his dazed and febrile condition, Chub comprehended what the kid had done; gotten hisself some insurance. “Does this mean we can’t kill the fucker?”
“I don’t see how,” Bode said.
“And what’s all this about the money?”
“He wants a cut, we gotta give it to him,” Bode said. “Thank God he only knows about one a them lottery tickets. So, like … what’s a third of fourteen million?”
Chub strained to do the division in his head. “Four something. Four point five, four point six.”
“So that’ll be his share. Long as he don’t find out about the other goddamn ticket.”
Chub felt like puking. Four and a half million bucks for that dumb dork! It wasn’t right. Sinful was what it was.
“Blackmail,” Bode said morosely. There was no denying the gravity of their predicament. Saving white America would have to wait; first they had to save themselves.
“Tell you what else,” he said to Chub. “Your pretty blond sweetheart’s in on the deal.”
“Not Amber. Ain’t no way.”
“You think Shiner’s smart enough to dream this shit up? Kid can’t find his own dick with a pair of salad tongs.”
“But still.” Chub didn’t want to believe Amber had hooked up with Shiner. Why would she be with him, he wondered, when she could have me?
Bode Gazzer told him to put on some clothes. “Before your pecker gets fried.”
“But I’m burnin’ up. Feel how hot.” He flopped his tumescent crab arm on the deck of the boat.
“No, thanks,” Bode said, stepping away. A notion had come to him. “Today’s Monday, right?”
“Don’t ask me.”
Bode drummed his fingers on the gunwale. “That gives us a whole day until Shiner’s momma hits the launchpad. Say we leave right now—run this puppy back to the highway, hop in the truck and haul ass. We could make Tall’hassee by lunchtime tomorrow.”
Chub peeped ferretlike from inside Amber’s orange shorts. “What about the video?”
“We stop at the trailer on the way north. Find the damn tape and burn it. Burn the whole car if we got to, just like we done to that asshole’s Miata.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Chub’s laugh came out as a dry rattle. He couldn’t wait to get off that miserable island. “Leave the sneaky bastard out here to rot. I love it, man.”
“Her, too.”
“Aw, no!”
Bode Gazzer said, “We better.”
“But I haven’t got to fuck her yet. Not even a b.j.”
“Come on. Let’s load the boat.”
Chub said, “We got time, man, if we hurry. Time for both of us to get a piece.”
Bode should’ve short-circuited the idea, but instead he allowed it to float around his imagination. He was beset by a vision of Amber nude, on her knees.
“We tie up the skinhead,” Chub proposed, “we each take a turn with the girl and then we split.”
“Will she go for it?” Bode didn’t feel right about raping a white woman. More important, it was a big-time felony.
Chub said, “S’pose it was her only way off the island. Then she’d go for it, you bet she would.”
“Good point,” Bode said.
It was a historic moment, Chub with an actual brainstorm. He climbed into the Reel Luv to search for his bag of glue.
Bode heard footsteps and wheeled around. He should’ve been ready with the Beretta, but he wasn’t.
Amber stood there in the camo jumpsuit, the top half open, her hair slick and shining from her swim. “I can’t find Shiner,” she said.
“Ain’t that a shame.” Chub, leering through the crotch of her waitress shorts.
Bode Gazzer matter-of-factly told Amber the plan, told her the price of the boat ride back to the Keys. She didn’t sob, didn’t run, didn’t get mad. Her
expression was totally neutral, giving both men a misplaced sense of expectation. Chub had a bounce in his step as he got out of the boat.
Amber said, “Take those ridiculous pants off your face.”
Bode was momentarily distracted by the crab attached to Chub’s hand; he thought he detected movement.
Amber repeated her demand. “Take ’em off. You look like a pervert.”
“Listen to you,” Chub said, and made a step toward her. That’s when he saw the Colt Python .357. His Colt. His Lotto ticket, his life’s fortune, his entire mortal future—all in the hands of a pissed-off Hooters babe.
“Jesus Willy,” he said.
Bodean Gazzer was amazed at how fast it was unraveling, all because of rotten luck, blind lust and stupidity.
“Have some more glue,” he told his partner. “See what else you can fuck up.”
Amber fired the pistol at Chub’s feet. The bullet kicked sand on his shins and ankles. He yanked the orange pants off his head and tossed them.
“Thank you,” Amber said. “Now, what did you guys do with Shiner?”
“Nothin’,” they answered, Bode first and then Chub.
None of them could know that Shiner was exactly one hundred and twenty-seven paces away, wetting himself in stark terror.
24
As he pointed the shotgun, Tom Krome wrote the lead of the story in his head:
An unidentified convenience store clerk was shot to death Monday in a bizarre attack on a remote island off the Florida Keys.
Police said the victim apparently was stalked and ambushed while relieving himself in a mangrove thicket. Arrested for first-degree murder was Thomas Paine Krome, 35, a newspaper reporter who had been missing and believed dead.
Coworkers described Krome as a moody and volatile “loner.” One of his former editors said he wasn’t “the least bit surprised” by the homicide charge.
Krome made Shiner put up his hands. JoLayne Lucks instructed him not to move a muscle.
“But I peed on myself,” the kid said.
“I expect it’ll be the high point of your day.”
Shiner blinked wildly.
Krome said, “Okay, Goober, where’s the Lotto ticket?”
“I d-don’t got it.” Shiner’s eyes jumped from the Remington to the dark crescent radiating across his trousers. “Can I least tuck myself in?”