Double Whammy

Up the trail, the rider moaned and began to extricate himself from a cabbage palm.

"Christ!" Decker said, his breath heavy.

Skink tucked the pistol in his pants. "Front tire," he reported, almost smiling. "Told you I was in the mood to shoot."

Back at the shack, Skink barbecued the opossum on an open spit and served it with fresh corn, collards, and strawberries. Decker focused on the vegetables because the opossum tasted gamy and terrible; he could only take Skink's word that the animal was fresh and had not lain dead on the highway for days.

As they sat by the fire, Decker wondered why the ferocious mosquitoes were concentrating on his flesh, while Skink seemed immune. Perhaps the captain's blood was lethal.

"Who hired you?" Skink asked through a mouthful of meat.

Decker told him who, and why.

Skink stopped chewing and stared.

"You know Mr. Gault?" Decker asked.

"I know lots of folks."

"Dickie Lockhart?"

Skink bit clean through a possum bone. "Sure."

"Lockhart's the cheater," Decker said.

"You're getting close."

"There's more?" Decker asked.

"Hell, yes!" Skink tossed the bone into the lake, where its splash startled a mallard.

"More," Skink muttered. "More, more, more."

"Let's hear it, captain," Decker said.

"Another night." Skink spit something brown into the fire and scowled at nothing in particular. "How much you getting paid?"

Decker was almost embarrassed to tell him. "Fifty grand," he said.

Skink didn't even blink. "Not enough," he said. "Come on, Miami, finish your damn supper."

Ott Pickney stopped by the motel before eight the next morning. He knocked loudly on R. J. Decker's door.

Groggily, Decker let him in. "So how'd it go?" Ott asked.

"A lively night."

"Is he as kooky as they say?"

"Hard to tell," Decker said. Living in Miami tended to recalibrate one's view of sanity.

Ott said he was on his way to a funeral. "That poor fella I told you about."

"The fisherman?"

"Bobby Clinch," Ott said. "Sandy wants a tearjerker for the weekend paper—it's the least we can do for a local boy. You and Skink going out for bass?"

"Not this morning." Skink had left the proposition in the air. Decker planned to meet him later.

Ott Pickney said, "Why don't you ride along with me?"

"To a funeral?"

"The whole town's closing down for it," Ott said. "Besides, I thought you might want to see some big-time bassers up close. Bobby had loads of friends."

"Give me a second to shower."

Decker hated funerals. Working for the newspaper, he'd had to cover too many grim graveside services, from a cop shot by some coked-up creep to a toddler raped and murdered by her babysitter. Child murders got plenty of play in the papers, and a shot of the grieving parents was guaranteed to run four columns, minimum. A funeral like that was the most dreaded assignment in journalism. Decker didn't know quite what to expect in Harney. For him it was strictly business, a casual surveillance. Maybe even Dickie Lockhart would show up, Decker thought as he toweled off. He was eager to get a glimpse of the town celebrity.

They rode to the graveyard in Ott Pickney's truck. Almost everyone else in Harney owned a Ford or a Chevy, but Ott drove a new Toyota flatbed. "Orchids," he explained, a bit defensively, "don't take up much space."

"It's a fine truck," Decker offered.

Ott lit a Camel so Decker rolled down the window. It was a breezy morning and the air was cold, blowing dead from the north.

"Can I ask something?" Ott said. "It's personal."

"Fire away."

"I heard you got divorced."

"Right," Decker said.

"That's a shame, RJ. She seemed like a terrific kid."

"The problem was money," Decker said. "He had some, I didn't." His wife had run off with a timeshare-salesman-turned-chiropractor. Life didn't get any meaner.

"Jesus, I'm sorry." The divorce wasn't really what Ott wanted to talk about. "I heard something else," he said.

"Probably true," Decker said. "I did ten months at Apalachee, if that's what you heard."

Pickney was sucking so hard on the cigarette that the ash was three inches long. Decker was afraid it would drop into Ott's lap and set his pants on fire, which is what had happened one day in the newsroom of the Miami Sun.None of the fire extinguishers had been working, so Ott had been forced to straddle a drinking fountain to douse the flames.

"Do you mind talking about it?" Ott said. "I understand if you'd rather not."

Decker said, "It was after one of the Dolphin games. I was parked about four blocks from the stadium. Coming back to the car, I spotted some jerkoff breaking into the trunk, trying to rip off the cameras. I told him to stop, he ran. He was carrying two Nikons and a brand-new Leka. No way was I going to let him get away."

"You caught up with him?"

"Yeah, he fell and I caught up to him. I guess I got carried away."

Pickney shook his head and spit the dead Camel butt out the window. "Ten months! I can't believe they'd give you that much time for slugging a burglar."