Double Whammy

"See him, feel him!" the audience responded. A strange new verse, but it had a pleasing cadence.

Hastily Reverend Weeb steered the prayer chant back to more conventional exhortations. "God, save this wretched sinner!"

"Save him!" echoed the crowd.

Like a turtle suddenly caught on the highway, Reverend Weeb retracted his neck, drew in his extremities, and blinked his eyes. The trance lasted a full minute before he snapped out. Raising his arms above his head, he declared: "The time is nigh. Jesus is coming to our living room!"

The audience waited rapturously. The Minicam was so close you could have counted the pores on Charlie Weeb's nose.

"Jeremiah?" he said. "Repeat after me: 'Jesus, let me see your face.'"

Skink repeated it.

"And, 'Jesus, let me see the sunshine.' "

"Jesus, let me see the sunshine."

"And, 'Jesus, let me see the pure Christian glory of your newest creation, Lunker Lakes.'"

"Ditto," Skink said. Now came the fun part.

"The Lord has spoken," Weeb declared. "Jeremiah, my dear Christian brother, remove thy Wayfarers!"

Skink took off the sunglasses and tucked them in the top pocket of the suit. A ripple of shock passed through the audience. Skink had not allowed the makeup girls near his face. The Minicams backed off fast.

Averting his eyes, Reverend Weeb bellowed: "Jeremiah, are you truly healed?"

"Oh yes, Brother Weeb."

"And what is it you see?"

"A great man in a raspberry suit."

The audience applauded. Many shouted febrile praises to the heavens.

Beaming modestly, Reverend Weeb pressed on: "And, Jeremiah, above my head there is a joyous sign—a sign invisible to your eyes only a few short moments ago. Tell us what it says."

This was Skink's big cue, the lead-in to the live tournament coverage. Since it was assumed he would still be mostly blind after the healing, Skink had been asked to memorize the banner and pretend to be reading it on the air. The banner said: "Lunker Lakes Presents the Dickie Lockhart Memorial Bass Blasters Classic."

But those were not the words that Skink intended to say into the microphone.

Charlie Weeb waited three long beats. "Jeremiah?"

Skink raised his eyes to the banner.

"Jeremiah, please," Weeb said, "what does the sign say?"

"It says: 'Squeeze My Lemon, Baby.' "

A hot prickly silence fell over the stage. Terror filled the face of the Reverend Charles Weeb. His mouth hung open and his gleaming bonded caps clacked vigorously, but no spiritual words issued forth.

The big blind man with the pulpy face began to weep.

"Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Brother Weeb. Thanks for everything."

With that, Skink turned to face camera one.

And winked.

And when he winked, the amber glass owl eye popped from the hole in his head and bounced on the stage with the sharp crack of a marble. They heard it all the way in the back row.

"Oh, I can see again, Brother Weeb," the formerly blind man cried. "Come, let me embrace you as the Lord embraced me."

With simian arms Skink reached out and seized the Minicam and pulled it to his face.

"Squeeze my lemon, baby!" he moaned, mashing his lips to the lens.

In the crowd, thirteen women fainted heavily out of their folding chairs.

This time it was for real.

"Want a beer?" Lanie asked.

"No," said Dennis Gault.

"A Perrier?" Lanie dug into the ice chest.

"Quiet," her brother said.

He had been casting at the brushpile for a long time without a nibble. He had tried every gizmo in the tacklebox, plus a few experimental hybrids, but returned to the Double Whammy out of stubbornness. It had been Dickie Lockhart's secret lure, everybody knew that, so Dennis Gault was dying to win the tournament with it. Flaunt it. Rub it in. Show the cracker bastards that their king was really dead.

Gault knew he was in the right spot, for the sonic depth-finder provided a detailed topography of the canal bottom. The brushpile came across as a ragged black spike on an otherwise featureless chart; an elliptical red blip shone beneath it.

That was the fish.

From the size of the blip, Dennis Gault could tell the bass was very large.

It did not stay in one place, but moved slowly around the fringes of the submerged crates. Gault aimed his casts accordingly.

"Why won't the damn thing eat?" Lanie asked.

"I don't know," Gault said, "but I wish you'd be quiet."

Lanie made a face and went back to her magazines. She wanted her brother to win the tournament as much as he did, but she didn't fully understand why he took it so seriously—especially since he didn't need the money. At least Bobby Clinch had had good reasons to get tense over fishing tournaments; he was trying to keep groceries on Clarisse's table and gas in Lanie's Corvette.

She spun in the pedestal seat so the sun was at her back, and flipped to an article on bulimia.