Double Whammy

Slowly R. J. Decker panned to the second boat, and when he did his knees nearly crimped.

It was the Starcraft, and it wasn't the way Decker had left it.

Catherine said, "Oh no," and moved behind Skink. She leaned her head against his back, and closed her eyes.

The boat was full of buzzards.

There was a ragged cluster of at least a dozen—burly fearless birds; oily brown, stoop-shouldered, with raw pink heads and sharp ruthless eyes. They belched and shifted and blinked in the bright light, but they didn't fly. They were too full.

"Tough customers," Skink whispered to Decker.

Numbly Decker let the TV camera peer into the boat. He ignored the disembodied voice shrieking from his earpiece.

The buzzards stood in a litter of human bones. The bones were clean, but occasionally one of the rancid birds would bend down and pick savagely, as a possessive gesture to the others. The biggest buzzard, a disheveled male with a stained crooked beak, palmed a bare yellow skull in its talons.

"Looks like a dog," Skink said, puzzled.

"It's Lucas," Catherine sighed. "Rage, I want to go home."

As soon as Eddie Spurling tied off the boats, Charlie Weeb barged forward and said, "Why'd you tow those fuckers in?"

"Because they ast me to."

"So where's the fish?"

"No fish," Eddie Spurling reported. "I got skunked."

Weeb sucked on his upper lip. He had to be careful what he said. There was a decent-sized crowd now; the other contestants had hung around just to see how the famous TV fisherman had fared.

"What do you mean, no fish—how is that possible?" Weeb spoke in a low strained voice. He used his eyes to grill Eddie about the ringers—where the fuck were they!

"Damn rascals just weren't bitin'."

"You're in big trouble, Eddie."

"Naw, I don't think so."

The sports reporter from OCN poked his microphone into Spurling's face and asked the star of Fish Feverwhat had happened.

"Just one of those days," Fast Eddie mused, "when you feel like a spit-valve on the trombone of life."

Al Garcia and Jim Tile climbed out of the skiff with the Igloo cooler. Skink was waiting for them.

"We didn't get Queenie," Garcia said.

"I know."

Garcia looked at Jim Tile, then at Skink.

Skink said, "Bet you boys had some engine trouble."

"I don't believe this," Garcia said. He realized what had happened, but he didn't know why.

"What's going on, jungle man?"

"Change of plans," Skink said. "Late-breaking brainstorm."

Jim Tile was thinking about it. "The Starcraft isn't one of the tournament boats."

"No," Skink said, "it's not. Ask Decker about that one."

Garcia said, That means there's another guy still out on the water."

"Right," said Jim Tile. "Dennis Gault."

Skink looked pleased. "You boys are pretty sharp, even for cops."

Al Garcia remembered what Skink had taught him about the huge fish. "Just what the hell have you done?" he asked.

"It's not me, senor.I just arranged things." Skink flipped open the lid of the Igloo and saw Garcia's little bass, darting in the clean water. "I'll be damned, Sergeant, I'm proud of you."

Jim Tile said, "Sir, there's something you ought to know."

"In a minute, Trooper Jim. First let's get this little scupper to the weigh station." By himself Skink hoisted the heavy cooler and elbowed his way through the crowd. "You won't believe this," he was saying over his shoulder to Tile and Garcia, "but I believe you're the only boat that caught fish."

"That's what we're trying to tell you," Garcia said, huffing behind.

Skink climbed the stage and carried the cooler to the scale. He took out the little bass and carefully set him in the basket. Behind them onstage the digital scale lighted up with glowing six-foot numerals: "14 oz."

"Ha-ha!" Skink cawed. He found the stage mike and boomed into the PA system: "Attention, K-Mart shoppers! We've got a winner."

"Shitfire," Charlie Weeb muttered. The voice on the PA sounded just like the blind man. First a boatload of buzzards, and now what?

As the queasy preacher followed the OCN camerman to the weigh station, it occurred to him it wasn't red-haired Rudy, but someone else with the Minicam, someone Weeb didn't recognize. It made little sense, but in the unremitting chaos of the day it seemed a negligible mystery.

The blind man was not onstage when Charlie Weeb got there, but another nightmare awaited him.

The Tile Brothers.

"Hola,"Jim Tile said to Charlie Weeb. "muy grandefish, no?"

"Check it out, bro," Al Garcia said.

Charlie Weeb got a bilious taste in his throat. "It appears that you are indeed the winner," he said. The Minicam was right in his face—all America was watching. Somehow Weeb composed himself and raised the puny bass for the camera. Two girls in orange bikinis rolled out the immense trophy, and two more carried out a giant cardboard facsimile of the check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

"That's righteous," Al Garcia said, causing Jim Tile to wince, "but where be the real thing?"